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1; W- A ■«'- ■ iv.' 







THE WORLD’S MERCY 


BY 


MAXWELL GRAY 


AUTHOR. OF 

THE SILENCE OF DEAN MAITLAND, THE HOUSE 
OF HIDDEN TREASURE, SWEETHEARTS AND 
FRIENDS, IN THE HEART OF THE STORM, 

A COSTLY FREAK, ETC. 

K -V 

// / f 




^ N 








i > 

NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1899 

L, 


\ 



TWO COf>iES received. 


Library cf Cc 3 gr 08 % 
Office c f ti^Q 

-MW 6-1900 

Beglttsr of Cof.yr|(^h{sit 


50992 

Copyright, 1899, 


By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 


A ll rights reserved. 


lyC^ - OC>0 k> \ 0 

t 



SECOND COPY, 




CONTENTS 


THE WORLD’S MERCY i 

SWEET REVENGE 127 

AN OLD SONG 163 

A SUMMER NIGHT 227 

THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 253 


V 


t 




THE WORLD’S MERCY 


CHAPTER I 

IN THE STREET 

A BITTER wind swept the dim-lighted 
street, along which a few stragglers passed 
with bent heads and swift steps, and through 
which wheels rattled drily at intervals. It 
shook windows in sudden gusts; it rose from 
time to time to howl savagely round the 
house, and died down in groans and mutter- 
ings of impotent rage. Stars glittered with 
fiery brilliance in a steel-blue sky that seemed 
to shudder in the fierce blast; trees shivered 
and moaned in the bear garden. 

When a wild shriek down the chimney 
drove smoke and ashes from the grate into 
the room, Isabel rose and read a thermome- 
ter upon the wall near the cot where her lit- 
tle son slept a troubled, feverish sleep, inter- 


2 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


rupted by a faint moan that was almost a 
cough, and accompanied by thick breathing, 
which her quick ear recognised as growing 
less and less difficult. From the thermome- 
ter her gaze turned to the sleeping child, the 
anxiety that furrowed her brow softening in 
a tenderness that took years from her ap- 
parent age. 

It was a year-old boy, a noble babe, with 
plump limbs, broad chest, and chubby cheeks, 
the delicate carmine usual to which was now 
a burning crimson. She knew that this fine 
development and strength made the baby all 
the more susceptible to acute lung trouble; 
she could have cursed the black northeaster 
that was suffocating her last and only child. 
Drawing the coverlet warmly round the dim- 
pled chin, and denying herself the kiss she 
was about to take, she stepped softly back to 
her seat by the fire, resuming the book that 
she read less than the boy’s sleeping face as 
she faced the cot, her elbows on the table, her 
head in her hands, the light of a shaded lamp 
on the page. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


3 


He was so much better, out of danger, her 
husband had told her that morning; with 
warmth and food he would be well soon. 
Tears suddenly scalded her eyes at the 
thought of his narrow escape: what if he had 
not taken that better turn? She had lost all 
the others, three beautiful children, two boys 
and a girl; she could not lose Harry, the last, 
the only hope of her life. Her face darkened, 
a vindictive look crossed it at the remem- 
brance of those lost innocents — murdered 
innocents, she called them. 

She drew out her watch — so late? — and 
replaced it with a heavy sigh. But Harry 
was better, better, better. It rang in her 
head in happy rhythm with her heart beats; 
she was thankful, she would forget the past, 
she would live her difficult life more bravely, 
more sweetly; she could forgive so much to- 
night. That had been her portrait on the 
wall, only eight years ago — that smiling, 
child-eyed girl, with parted red lips and 
wondering gaze. Harry had just that gaze 
sometimes. She smiled bitterly at a com- 


4 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


parison of that pictured face with that she 
saw daily in her glass; a handsome face still, 
but marked with passion and pain, scorn and 
suffering, a wild scorn of her own suffering 
and the baseness of others, an angry wonder 
at the iniquity of man and the injustice and 
misery of life; a face whence trust and hope 
had fled, where ignorance was replaced by 
bitterest knowledge, innocent wonder by 
dark experience. 

Her husband’s portrait balanced hers on 
the wall; both were painted photographs, 
taken just before their marriage. His was a 
genial, frank face, with full lips, broad brow, 
and clear, well-opened eyes; she had seen, 
and could now see, nothing sinister in it, no 
faintest suggestion of evil. Strange it was 
to look on that young bride and bridegroom 
and wonder about them now, as one might 
wonder at some ancestral story or historic 
incident, remote, yet faintly linked with one’s 
own story. Had she in very truth been that 
poor, happy young creature, pathetic in her 
blank ignorance of life’s agony, and had he 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


5 


verily been that gallant, gay young man with 
the bold, frank gaze softened to a lover’s ten- 
derness, and a mouth smiling with expectant 
joy? “Si jeiinesse savait! ” 

The wind brought a whirl of wedding 
bells now and again upon its eddying blast. 
She heard them with a sardonic smile, won- 
dering what transformation awaited the 
young couple for whom they rang. She 
knew the bridegroom, and in a few days 
would call on the unknown bride brought 
home to-night. She liked the man; he 
seemed all that a wife could wish — good- 
hearted, kind, steady, manly, deeply, if silent- 
ly, in love. The bride’s photograph had 
been shown her once in a moment of expan- 
sion, with bashful pride. She had said all 
that is expected on such occasions, yet he 
had been chilled, replying nothing, but look- 
ing first with sad wonder at her saddened 
face, then with grave musing on the carpet 
at her feet. What will he do to her? Isabel 
wondered, as she recalled the incident. 

Many things long forgotten came into 


6 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


her mind to-night. She was worn with a 
series of broken nights and some^of complete 
watching; her heavy eyes kept closing in 
spite of herself, and in the drowsiness old 
things returned. Her engagement, her pride 
in George, her girlish worship of him; if ever 
husband had been reverenced, he had. That 
curious, far-off happiness, combined of fulfil- 
ment and expectancy; the rapturous heart- 
throb of the home-coming — to this very 
house! newly furnished and decorated then; 
her strange pride in her pleasant home and 
her new matronly dignity, her absorption in 
George and delight in ministering to his 
comfort and happiness. How singular and 
remote these things appeared now! What is 
personal identity, after all? She knew how 
that Isabel Arnott had thought and felt, 
and acted in those days, but thought of it 
with wonder and without sympathy, half 
contemptuously, half wistfully. Her moth- 
er’s first visit had been the pearl of all that 
joy. How glad her mother had been to 
see and share her daughter’s happiness! 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


7 


She had died a year later. Isabel found her- 
self thanking Heaven that her mother was 
dead, and tears sprang to her eyes. She had 
had no tears at the time of her mother’s 
death, only an iron pain and a choking spasm 
in the throat. 

A faint sound broke upon those mournful 
recollections; the door opened softly, a rosy 
face peeped in, and, on receiving a sign from 
the wet eyes, was followed by the figure of 
a buxom maid, who glided noiselessly, in 
stocking feet, to the cot, and thence, after a 
long gaze, to the watching mistress. 

“ He do breathe better, ma’am,” she 
whispered; “don’t he, the darling?” 

The mother smiled an assent and looked 
an interrogation. 

“ The man. Barton,” whispered the maid, 
“ he wants to know if it’s any good waiting 
any longer for the doctor? It’s gone eleven 
and his wife wanting to be sat up with.” 

Isabel’s face darkened. “ I don’t know,” 
she whispered back. “ I told him I could 
not say how long the doctor might be kept. 


8 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


He must do what he thinks proper. You 
can say you are going to bed, Charlotte. 
You had better lock the house up and go to 
bed. I want nothing more for Master Harry. 
Are the others gone? 

“ Shan’t I take Master Harry to-night? ” 
the girl asked. 

“ No, no. He must be kept in one tem- 
perature.” 

“ I could make a good fire, and we could 
cover his face and carry him, cot and all, into 
the nursery or the spare room,” she added, 
earnestly. 

“ No, no,” the mother replied, with agita- 
tion, “ I don’t dare. All the rooms are 
north, too. No, best here.” 

“ Oh, ma’am! hadn’t you better? I’d 
lock the door.” 

“ Hush! No. You mean well, Char- 
lotte, but you don’t understand.” 

The girl went reluctantly, the boy waked 
with a stifling cough; Isabel lifted him and 
held him covered warmly till the cough 
brought relief; then she walked up and 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


9 


down the room with him, crooning some 
lullaby, till the moaning ceased and he slept 
again. 

When he was back in his cot she went 
downstairs and round the silent house, see- 
ing that all was safe and properly locked. 
Then she mended the fire in the dining 
room, building it up to last through the 
night, with the skill of experience. The 
room was cosily curtained and brightly 
lighted; it had been handsomely fitted 
once, but was now shabby, the leather-cov- 
ered chairs were stained and ripped, here and 
there a stout oaken back was broken. Isa- 
bel saw her tired, haggard face, all broken 
and distorted, in a mirror that had been 
splintered by a blow; it was at once an em- 
blem and an epitome of her shattered life and 
hope. There were stains on the table cover, 
stains on the wall paper; the latter, of a dull 
dark brown, were blood stains. Once she 
had tried to take them out, but now re- 
garded them as a fitting part of the whole. 
Yet the grotesquely distorted reflections of 


lO 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


the shattered mirror and the sinister stains 
on the wall always filled her with fresh horror 
when they met her gaze. 

She wheeled a comfortable easy-chair to 
the fire, placed slippers before it in the blaze, 
took a spirit stand from the cellaret and 
stood it on the table within easy reach of 
the chair, with a hot-water jug, soda water, a 
jar of tobacco, matches, an ash tray, and 
glasses which did not match. The brass ket- 
tle in the fender bore marks of ill-usage. So 
did many things in that woful room, the 
stolid witness of a long-drawn domestic trag- 
edy in many scenes and acts. 

Having done all and returned to the 
child, she undressed, pausing first to con- 
sider if she dared remain up and dressed; but 
a reflection upon past experience told her 
that her best chance was to obey orders, 
while the restful warmth and recumbence of 
bed were but too inviting to wearied limbs 
and overstrained, outwatched nerves. The 
boy stirred with a faint moan; she took him 
gently in her arms and lay down with him. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY n 

“God help us!” she murmured, as she 
slipped under the eider down with her sacred 
treasure on her breast. But she did not 
pray; she had forgotten how long it was 
since she had discontinued that custom. 

Silence soon reigned throughout the 
house; the storm raged on outside, shaking 
windows, shrieking through keyholes and 
corridors, buffeting chimney stacks and roar- 
ing in trees. All slept: the tired healthy 
young servants, the recovering baby; most 
deeply of all the overwearied mother, lulled 
by wind without and warmth within. Holy, 
healing Sleep took even that scarred and tor- 
tured heart to his balmy breast and hushed 
it to exquisite peace. But Isabel remem- 
bered, even when the sweet confusion and 
relaxing of slumber dissipated her tired 
thoughts, how often the sanctity of that 
holy presence had been violated in this house 
of horror and pain, and something of fear 
and anxiety remained upon her face and 
troubled her dreams long after this blessed 
truce to life’s misery had come to her. But 


12 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


at last the trouble went completely out of 
her face, the breath that rocked the sleeping 
boy on her breast became softly inaudible, 
dreams vanished, she smiled faintly in her 
perfect rest and looked young again, her 
years numbering but twenty-eight. 

The small hours came with lagging pace, 
clocks struck two and ticked on in the 
silence, the half-hour chimed, and the three- 
quarters; then the stillness of the sleeping 
house was violently broken by loud and re- 
peated jangling of the night bell. 

Charlotte opened sleepy eyes upon the 
pale darkness and turned, shuddering at the 
angry dissonance; the other servants drew 
the clothes over their ears and tried to shut 
out sounds not unfamiliar to them at night — 
sounds that followed on unbarring the door 
and the cessation of bell clangour, sounds 
of overturned furniture and breaking glass, 
of a man’s shout of hoarse rage, a woman’s 
stifled shriek, the pitiful wail of a sick babe. 

Charlotte turned again with an angry 
sob, murmuring that she would stand it no 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


13 


longer; the cook groaned and buried her 
face deeper in the pillow; all shuddered at 
a renewal of those sinister night sounds, 
culminating in a terrific crash and rattle of 
street - door chains and bars, followed by 
duller sounds and silence, in which sleep 
once more descended softly upon the startled 
household. 

But outside on the pavement, beneath 
the keen, cold brilliance of frosty stars, her 
one thin garment and her hair rudely tossed 
by the bitter blast, stood the mistress of the 
house, white-faced, wild-eyed, fury, horror, 
and hatred raging in her heart. The wind 
had its own way in the empty street, dimly 
lighted by lamps and bordered by blind, still 
houses, in which a dull gleam was rarely vis- 
ible. The strange silence and emptiness of 
those rows of houses so animated by day had 
something of death’s stony cruelty: that 
living beings, faces familiar, were sleeping 
behind those long walls of black masonry 
seemed incredible; that among all the sleep- 
ers and watchers she knew to be there not 




THE WORLD’S MERCY 


one would help her in her terrible need was 
an indisputable fact. It was not the first 
time that Isabel’s white, unprotected feet had 
pressed those cold stones at dead of night; 
she knew very well what to expect — the pos- 
sible insult of a belated drunkard, the agoniz- 
ing pity and unwelcome interference of the 
policeman on his beat, the grudging, humili- 
ating hospitality of a neighbour roused from 
sleep. 

And she was well acquainted with the 
pitiless face of the night sky, the cruel indif- 
ference of the home which was her own, the 
incredible savagery of the human beast 
lapped in warmth and comfort within, con- 
tent in his swinish luxury after thrusting her, 
defenceless and unclad, into the open street 
at night. But not her alone. What filled 
her heart to bursting with fury and indigna- 
tion was the helpless child’s exposure to the 
cruel night, with no shelter from the biting 
wind but her arms. 

She covered him as best she could, un- 
loosing the heavy plait in which her hair was 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


15 


always woven at night, lest it should be torn 
out by the tyrant’s cruel hand, and winding 
the small suffering form pressed closely to 
her breast in it. But she could not keep the 
frosty air from the labouring lungs, try as 
she would; her eyes filled with horror and 
her brain with madness at the thought that 
it was death for the cherished boy. The 
habitual fear of the policeman’s measured 
step, the habitual dread of the gaze of some 
passer-by or rudely awakened neighbour at a 
window, vanished in the agony of his danger; 
she forgot the unseemliness of her garb and 
the degradation of her position in the fren- 
zied instinct to save the poor babe. She 
dared not rouse her house, lest the savage 
who had thrust her out should appear with 
fresh violence; there was no way of entrance 
not carefully barred; no neighbour, she had 
been warned, would admit her again; the 
police station was far and in the direction of 
the wind. She prayed for help, but her 
prayer crumbled to curses when she remem- 
bered former prayers unheard and the se- 


1 6 the WORLD’S MERCY 

quent death of an unborn child. She wept 
and her tears seemed blood, for red drops 
from her face had stained the poor baby’s. 
A thousand thoughts rushed in a moment 
through her maddened brain. She won- 
dered that God and man could permit this 
cruelty, should look on, unmoved and unaid- 
ing, as it seemed to her, while a man-swine 
tortured and destroyed his helpless offspring. 
Unwilling maniacs are shut up; the wilful, 
deliberate madman is allowed to ravage his 
home and loose his blind and brutal violence 
upon the helpless creatures shut up with him 
at his mercy. 

Voices from the past sounded by her on 
the rushing wind; a man’s voice, mellowed by 
the music of young love, murmured “ Isabel ” 
— the voice had never pronounced her name 
till that moment nine years ago, when every 
fibre of her nature had stirred responsive to 
it, and her heart had leapt with the curiously 
ihingled rapture and agony that is the birth- 
pang of love. Where now was the gallant, 
gay young lover whose kiss had awakened 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


17 


all that was deepest, sweetest, and best in 
her, whose glances had thrown a glamour 
over the visible world and filled life with the 
music of Paradise? Where the hand whose 
warm yet reverent pressure had given her 
such glad assurance of succour, the arm that 
had enfolded her in a world of secure bliss, 
the eyes that had looked love and honour 
and promise of continuous joy to hers, the 
face she had reverenced, the words of sweet 
wisdom and noble purity? 

Visions of green lanes and sunny seas, 
scent of wild-rose and honeysuckle, snatches 
of song those lovers sang, went by on the 
wind with that low-voiced ‘‘ Isabel,” and 
many a fervid promise and passionate avowal 
in the same voice. And with them went the 
surprised joy of being loved and chosen, un- 
worthy she, out of the whole wide world, 
throbbing fears and exquisite pangs of hope, 
the dream-like unreality of those first bridal 
days among the mountains, with sunsets 
and sunrises, scent of wild strawberries 
picked in woods, broad and beauteous 


ig THE WORLD’S MERCY 

reaches of landscape seen and books read 
together in those halcyon days, and always, 
like the refrain of a song, that first, low- 
breathed “ Isabel,” in George’s moved voice. 
George, who had made her home a sty, who 
had outraged every feeling and crushed every 
hope in her heart. Nothing he could say 
now could move her to anything but hatred 
and contempt. Those sweet memories were 
as the mockery of demons, that tender 
“ Isabel ” as an impish chuckle from hell. 
There is sorrow that refines and elevates, 
that even in breaking the heart breaks it to 
fine music and lets it die in sweet odours, 
and there is misery that degrades and 
crushes, searing all noble instincts and 
crushing all high feeling. Of such was Isa- 
bel’s, she was wont to think, and now felt 
vaguely in the confused agony of the mo- 
ment, as she cowered in her own doorway, 
seeking shelter from the wind, bending her 
shivering body over her child and cursing 
the author of this cruelty, who lay, as she 
had so often seen him, in the room above in a 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


19 

drunken heavy sleep that she would fain have 
made eternal. 

All of a sudden there was a voice in 
her ear and a warm, living touch on her 
shoulder. Is there nothing to be done, 
no way into the house, can’t I kick the win- 
dows in? ” she heard, in a quick, thick ut- 
terance. 

“No, all barred and shuttered,” was the 
hopeless reply as she looked up into the face 
of a man who had rushed in noiseless slip- 
pered feet from the opposite house. 

“ Then in Heaven’s name come into 
mine,” he added, “ before the child dies! ” 

In another moment the three were inside 
the opposite house in darkness, the door was 
silently shut and locked, and a match struck 
and held to light the stairs, up which 
they silently fled, Isabel’s numbed feet stum- 
bling and bruising themselves against each 
stair as she went. At the top of the stairs 
they found themselves in a room still warm 
with the embers of a slowly dying fire, before 
which the unhappy mother crouched, the 


20 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


rug that had been thrown over her slipping 
away unregarded. 

“ Will it cry? ” the young man asked, as 
he knelt beside her with sticks and matches 
to rekindle the fire. “ We must not wake 
the people of the house. Speak low; all 
within these two rooms is at your service, 
such as it is. Thank Heaven, there’s coal 

and a kettle full of water ” 

And a bath, a small one?” she inter- 
rupted, shivering violently but unconscious- 
ly. “ And milk? Oh, to give him a 
draught of warm milk! ” 

“ Condensed milk in a tin, if that will 
do,” he replied, gazing on the white, agonized 
face by his side in a fury of pity, indignation, 
and tenderness, and observing the beauty of 
the features, the splendid hair falling in heavy 
swathes about mother and child, and the fine 
lines of the figure perceptible through the 
clinging folds of the thin gown. “ Good 
Heavens! the poor little thing is suffocating! 
And you too cold to touch him! ” 

Isabel stifled a cry of despair. What 


,THE WORLD’S MERCY 


21 


shall I do? For the love of Heaven make 
the fire burn, make a hot bath, and heat milk. 
If I had but four arms! Oh, save him, save 
him! Rouse the house, do anything — only 
save my little boy! ” 

‘‘ All right, all right, we’ll soon pull the 
little chap through,” he returned, in a 
soothing voice. “ But don’t make a row — 
no need. Look here! I’m boiling the water 
like fun and I’ll heat the milk on the spirit 
lamp, and here’s a bath and here are towels 
and blankets; we’ll heat them all in a brace of 
shakes. Only don't rouse the house, that’s 
a good soul! — unless you want a doctor.” 

He flew lightly from room to room, put- 
ting candle ends and sugar on the fire to pro- 
duce a quick blaze; the water was beginning 
to bubble, the milk heating on the spirit 
lamp, Isabel was still unconscious of all but 
the baby’s urgent need, when he brought a 
quaint flask, whence he poured a greenish 
liquid into a small glass and held it to her 
quivering, white lips. Drink,” he said. 
“ You are too cold to help the child; it will 


22 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


warm you. It won’t hurt you; it’s only 
Chartreuse.” 

She allowed him to pour it between her 
lips, her arms still occupied with the child; 
the cordial sent a glow through her numbed, 
chilled limbs and crushed heart; she became 
conscious of her insufficient dress, and sub- 
mitted to having one arm at a time put 
through the sleeves of a dressing gown, and 
made no objection when the young man, to 
his own great wonderment, gathered the 
long swathes of hair together, carefully and 
tenderly, but with the clumsiness of inexperi- 
ence, and twisted all in one great tress be- 
hind out of the way, while the baby choked 
and struggled, with labouring breath and 
faint moans that should have been coughs. 

‘‘ A curious midnight adventure for a 
grave young student,” Arthur Hedley re- 
flected, marvelling at the soft silkiness of the 
hair, marvelling at the lady’s utter abandon- 
ment to the child’s danger and total uncon- 
sciousness of himself, save as a minister to the 
boy’s need, at her absolute disregard of her- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


23 

self and all the fine-meshed conventionalities 
of life; marvelling most of all at the fascina- 
tion this concentrated feeling imparted to the 
singular beauty that he had so often admired 
and observed under the veils of clothing, cus- 
tom, and distance, and now held like some 
lovely captured butterfly in his very hand, 
under his minute and immediate scrutiny. 
The stains on the child’s face and her own 
had been removed, the first by the mother’s 
hand, the second by his own, unnoticed by 
her, the sponging being very gently done; 
but marks of violence were still upon her, fill- 
ing him with tempestuous emotion that was 
not all pity. The bright yellow hair coiled 
snakily round his fingers, while his heart 
throbbed and his eyes dilated. How could 
the husband of this beautiful and fascinating 
being do these things? What was he made of 
that he could not keep sober for such a wom- 
an? What was that whisper about a wife’s 
faults? It is always the wife’s fault in the 
world’s opinion; the world is savage and un- 
just, ever ready to put the blame on the weak- 


24 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


est; the world’s mercy is cruel. Well, a wom- 
an might be hard, unloving, shrewish, im- 
possible; she might drive a man to the mad 
relief of drink — but this savagery, this icono- 
clastic violence! If he drank he would not 
thus play the savage, surely. But there was 
no fear of his drinking; he was a most respect- 
able young man. Even now he was wonder- 
ing how soon he could disembarrass himself 
of these untimely, unconventional guests. 

“ I suppose,” he said, while doing these 
various charitable offices, ‘‘ it will be possible 
for you to get into your house before morn- 
ing. He’ll sleep it off, won’t he? I would 
knock and ring till the door opened, then 
signal to you to cross over.” 

“ I never try,” she replied, too preoccu- 
pied for anything but bare, brief truth. “ I 
always wait till the house is open and slip in 
as quietly as I can. He is very savage when 
sobering. Oh, the breathing is easier. 
That’s the steam. Now the bath! ” 

Hedley’s eyes gleamed strangely in the 
sidelong glance he threw on her face. She 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


25 

seemed not to feel the horror of her case: her 
voice was hard and metallic; yet her face 
was alight with tenderest love and pity, and 
she was crooning soft baby talk to the child. 
Well, a cat croons tenderly to her brood, 
though she robs a bird’s-nest for them. 

Pardon me,” he added, ‘‘ for worrying 
you in your anxiety, but I want to spare you 
the — ah! — that is, this adventure might not 
be well received, it might be unpleasantly 
gossiped over ” 

“Gossip! My baby is dying, and you 
talk of gossip! ” 

“ Nay, not dying, dear lady. See, he is 
quieting down; he’ll soon be asleep. As 
soon as practicable we must get you home — 
before people are about.” 

“ I shall never go home,” she replied 
quite calmly, with the daily deepening feel- 
ing that her husband’s violence was less hate- 
ful and less degrading even than his caresses. 

“ Have you no friends near? ” he asked. 

No house that could receive you? No? 
Could I telegraph to relatives to meet you 


26 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


anywhere, if I wrapped you up and took you 
to the first train? No relatives? ” 

‘‘ None who care. Two married brothers, 
who live far off.” 

His heart swelled with pity, admiration, 
and a host of uncomprehended feelings. 
She spoke as if in a dream, her gaze absorbed 
in the child, whom she clasped again, after 
the hot plunge in the bath, to her breast. 
The little face had lost its dark hue and suf- 
fering look, the long eyelashes touched the 
round cheek, the limbs relaxed from their 
convulsive tension, the wheezing breath was 
no longer audible. 

“Come, this is splendid,” he said; “the 
little beggar is going t^ sleep.” 

“He is asleep,” she replied in a hard 
voice, after listening a moment, with her 
head bent down, for the breathing. Then she 
looked up into Arthur’s face with an expres- 
sion that froze his blood, in a vacant, stony 
gaze, in which he saw that he had no part; a 
glaze came over her eyes, the colour left her 
face, she fell forward into his arms, senseless. 


CHAPTER II 


THE AWAKENING 

Early next morning, while it was still 
dusk, loud knocking sounded on George 
Arnott’s bedroom door. He turned and 
swore thickly, still heavy with the drunkard’s 
sleep; the door opened, Charlotte stepped 
in, and, laying a vigorous hand on his shoul- 
der, shook him with a will. 

“ What’s now? ” he growled, indignant 
at the unwonted liberty. “ I can’t go out. 
I’m ill. I’m dead.” 

“ It’s Master Harry, sir; dear little Mas- 
ter Harry, you turned out last night, you 
great brute beast!” she sobbed, clasping a 
white bundle in her unoccupied arm and 
continuing to shake him with the other. 

“Eh! what?” he muttered, trying to 

collect his muddled wits and stay the whirl- 
3 27 


y ■ 


28 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


ing of his soddened brain, as he raised his 
head and looked round the dim room. 
‘‘ Mas’r Harry? Put Mas’r Harry in cot, 
Charlt. Put Mas’ Har’ cot,” he stuttered, 
letting his hammering, leaden head fall back 
on the pillow and closing his bloodshot eyes 
in a comfortless sleep that was half stupor. 

“ If ever I marry a beast like that! ” mut- 
tered Charlotte, as she left the unhallowed 
room. 

The hours stole on into a chill leaden day. 
George Arnott woke and slumbered, and 
woke again with maledictions on his parched 
lips and the devil’s own hatred and discon- 
tent in his heart. He knew these wakings 
well; he would fain have slept on and on for- 
ever to miss them. Sometimes in the ex- 
ceeding dreariness of soul and wretchedness 
of body and mind such wakings bring he 
thought of sharp cutting things, and pon- 
dered which were easiest, an opened artery or 
such a quiet death draught as he had in the 
house, but without result. His hand was 
far too shaky for a scientific lancing, his 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


29 


wretched mind much too shaky and irreso- 
lute for that piteous refuge of the moral 
leper. This morning he wept, and bitter 
desolation fell upon him. Where was Isabel, 
with her stony reproachful face and the cup 
of tea she usually administered? Her eyes 
had begun to haunt him; after all, it was a 
relief to be rid of her for a while. The creep- 
ing things that mock the senses in delirium 
tremens used to look at him with those 
haunting, reproachful eyes. 

He felt so wretched this morning that 
the return of those horrors might be im- 
minent; he must either resort to death 
draughts or knives or keep from liquor alto- 
gether for a time. “ But how keep from 
liquor? ” he pondered, removing his miserable 
body from bed to bath and clothes. It need- 
ed a stronger will and firmer nerve than he 
possessed for that. If Isabel would but save 
him from himself! 

Strange, he reflected, that he had once 
loved Isabel; stranger still that she had 
seemed to return his love. Selfish, heartless 


30 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


jade, cold and cruel and unforgiving. She 
was his curse; with another woman he would 
have been another man. But that white 
face of reproach, those pained and scornful 
eyes, the way she had of shuddering from his 
touch and flinching at his voice. She would 
bring him tea with the air of one feeding a 
noxious beast, half disgust, half terror in her 
look. Why was. the jade absent this morn- 
ing? Had he struck last night that little 
too hard that sometimes brings such unfor- 
tunate husbands as he to police courts? 
There had certainly been violence, as far as 
he could remember. Had he turned her out 
of doors? No doubt he had; she was always 
so exasperating when he came home a little 
behind time. Many men in his place would 
have murdered her long before. 

Trying to disentangle the muddy con- 
fusion of his addled memory he swore at his 
own mental impotence, at the confounded 
brushes and clothes that eluded his shaking 
grasp — at everything. His bloodshot eyes 
fell, unseeing, on the portraits Isabel had 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


31 


observed last night. No one could have be- 
lieved him the original of that young man. 
His hair was prematurely grizzled, loose bags 
under his haggard eyes added years to his 
apparent age; his face had the bloated flesh 
and blurred features of his vice, his figure had 
lost all spring and comeliness. 

Suddenly he thought of the child, and 
turned to the cot in which the little form was 
visible. Still asleep? Poor little beggar, 
his rest had been broken in the night. After 
all, it was hard luck for him. What was this 
paper on the table? Isabel’s nursing record 
of Harry’s temperature, breathing, food, and 
medicine. His hand shook more than ever 
as he read it, his clouded brain clearing, pro- 
fessional habit become instinct, returning as 
he read, and remembered the child’s critical 
condition, his own orders and the mother’s 
careful observance of them. The paper 
ended at midnight, “ breathing easier, still 
sleeping.” With a stifled cry he went to 
the cot, his heart hammering loudly, and 
looked. 


32 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


Harry was lying very still and straight on 
his back, his tiny hands clasped on his quiet 
breast, a sweet smile on his waxen face. His 
father had no need to kiss the peaceful brow 
and feel its icy chill to know that he would 
wake and suffer no more. He had no need 
to feel the rigid limbs to know that he had 
been dead many hours, and was already pre- 
pared for his last narrow bed, his soft, golden 
curls smoothed above his sweet, innocent 
face. In the sobering of this awful truth 
he knew all — that he had driven his wife out 
into the bitter night with more bitter blows 
and his baby in her arms. He saw that in 
his drunken fury he had killed his own only 
child. 

His brain was quite clear now; a vast 
illumination seemed to sweep over its long- 
clouded surface, the veil was torn away from 
everything in his whole life. Harry lay 
smiling in the peace of death before him — 
dear, cherished Harry, for whose sake he 
was always going to keep sober; sweet, inno- 
cent Harry, who was just beginning to be 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


33 


SO fascinating with his broken prattle and 
marvellous bursts of intelligence and drol- 
lery — the cooing voice, the pattering steps 
were stilled forever, the loving gaze of the 
deep blue eyes was forever darkened, the 
smile quenched, the warm clinging of round 
arms and pressure of rosy lips forever lost. 
Only an ice-cold simulacrum, deaf, blind, and 
dumb, remained, white and still, with faintly 
tinted lips. Harry was gone forever. The 
child was old enough to be frightened at 
such scenes as last night’s; he had been still 
alive, for his father remembered the feeble 
wail. Isabel’s paper showed that he was 
recovering rapidly. Maud had been fright- 
ened; she was two and a half, she died in 
convulsions. Maud’s death had been the 
occasion of a deeper plunge hellward for him, 
he had been obliged to drown that memory 
and Isabel’s passionate reproaches and grief. 
Better have drowned himself, better never 
have been born; the curse in his blood was 
too dark. Best end it all now, here, by the 
side of his murdered son. Yet he did not. 


34 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


Something in that face of carven innocence 
forbade it. Perhaps a look of the babe’s 
mother, a hint of his own mother, a reflec- 
tion of the sister dead in her teens, who had 
been the finest influence and a purifying sor- 
row of his youth. 

He rang the bell and Charlotte answered 
it, a strange, furtive expression on her face. 

Come in and shut the door and tell me 
what you know of this,” he said in a calm, 
restrained voice, pointing to the cot. 
“ Don’t be afraid; I’m not drunk. I shall 
never be drunk any more. He has been 
dead many hours. I suppose I turned him 
out last night with his mother when I came 
home.” 

Charlotte’s tear-washed face went very 
white. “ You killed him! ” she cried fiercely. 

“Yes, I killed him,” he replied, with 
dreadful calm. “ But how? I was too 
drunk to know. I could not have struck 
him. There is no mark of violence on him. 
He was very ill. The chill might have done 
it easily, or the fright. I want to know 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


35 

^ exactly how I killed my son, Charlotte,” he 
added in a clear, cold voice. 

The girl’s face went whiter. “ Oh, sir, 
how could you!” she faltered. "‘We heard 
him cry when you came home — and mistress 
■ — we heard her, poor thing! Then the door 
slammed and we didn’t hear nothing more. 
This meaning early there was a ring at the 
door, a nasty creepy sort of ring, as made 
me shiver. I thought to myself, ‘ It must 
be mistress come home early,’ though she 
don’t ring in general, but waits till the door 
has been opened, which I do first thing I 
comes down for her. I hadn’t finished 
dressing this morning, but come down as I 
was; and there, when I opened the door, 
there was nobody. It give me a turn. It 
wasn’t hardly light, but the street lamps was 
out. Up along and down along I looked, 
but there was nobody nowhere, only two 
men passed down along opposite, going to 
work. Then I looked down and seen — oh, 
sir! — I seen dear little Master Harry on the 
step, wrapped up and quiet. I thought first 


36 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


it was a bundle of clothes. I took it up, and 
there — there — was his dear, little face, white 
and so quiet ” ^ 

‘‘ And cold? ” in the same awful calm. 

“Oh, sir!” she sobbed, “ice — ice — is 
warm to it.” 

“Where is Mrs. Arnott?” 

“ The Lord knows. Last time she said 
they wouldn’t take her in no more, and she 
didn’t know where to go. She’d used ’em 
all up.” 

Silence, interrupted by the girl’s chok- 
ing sobs; then Arnott spoke again. 

“ Who knows besides yourself of what 
you found on the doorstep? ” he asked. 

“ Nobody. But I was that upset I 
couldn’t but say something. So I said I’d 
been in and found the little dear died in the 
night, quite peaceful; and all the blinds is 
drawn down to make no talk in the town.” 

“ You are a good girl, Charlotte,” he said 
in that gentle, unemotional voice. “ And 
you are no fool. So listen! If you tell this 
thing there may be an inquest, and I may be 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


37 


charged and even convicted of manslaughter. 
That would be penal servitude for a term of 
years. It would be just, because I killed my 
poor baby. But it would be hard on Mrs. 
Arnott. It would be starvation and dis- 
grace added on to her present misery. If 
you say nothing, I simply write a certificate, 
giving a natural cause of death, and there is 
no inquest and no scandal. If you think' it 
wrong to let me go free consider your poor 
mistress, and remember that I shall carry 
this about with me my life long, branded 
and burnt into me. How do you think a 
man would feel with that ” — he suddenly 
shrieked, pointing to the sweet still face in 
the cot — “ always between him and God’s 
sun and man’s smile, between him and his 
daily bread, between him and his nightly 
slumber, painted on the darkness. Oh, 
Charlotte, Charlotte! I shall always be in 
hell while I live and wherever I live. I shall 
never, .never — have one moment without — 
oh, God! — I cannot undo it— never, never — 
forever.” 


38 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


Heavy sobs tore and shook him as he 
sat, his face bowed upon his hands, his strong 
body crushed beneath his agony. Char- 
lotte’s more facile, feminine tears returned 
to their source, her eyes grew haggard with 
horror and amazement, in which some com- 
passion mingled, though she was not aware 
of it. She looked at the tranquil angel face 
that last night had been so full of suffering, 
half for reassurance, half in grief that the 
high and holy peace of death should be thus 
outraged by sounds of guilty pain in its pres- 
ence. Her pale, drawn lips forbade speech 
till the storm of agony subsided and the mis- 
erable father raised his wet face once more. 

What is it to be? ” he asked then, in a 
voice that startled her by its absolute calm. 
“ Silence or told over the town? ” 

“ Silence,” was the awed reply. 

“ Right, Charlotte, right. But remem- 
ber,” he added, after a heavy pause, “ all 
hangs on you. You are an honest woman 
and trustworthy. You have been kind to 
your mistress in her trouble. You’ll be so 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


39 


still. Go and prepare a place for — the child 
— in the next room. Buy flowers, make it 
look — as women like those things.” 

When he went downstairs to do some of 
those sad, necessary things that death exacts 
he looked more like himself than he had done 
for months, purified by his great grief and 
calmed by its passionate outburst. More 
like himself, and therefore more sensitive to 
the squalid misery of the life his vice inflicted 
on his wife. On the hall table lay a toy 
horse, little Harry’s delight, broken. The 
poor child liked to have it in his cot, he re- 
membered. It must have been in his hand 
last night, and dropped when he was driven 
out to his death in the darkness. 

Entering the dining room, where break- 
fast was laid for two, in the midday sun- 
beams that crept through the drawn blinds, 
he saw himself, distorted and multiplied in 
the splintered mirror, with a disgust and 
loathing he had never felt before. Poor Isa- 
bel, to be driven from such a home! Yet 
other women endured such things and for- 


40 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


gave and loved on; yes, and even saw their 
helpless children wronged and, more or less 
directly, slain. 

The breakfast had not been touched. 
Why was she not there as usual, with that 
face, white and wearing its look of maddened 
patience and restrained disgust? Some- 
times that weary face was bruised and cut; 
always it exasperated him by its witness to 
his own brutality and degradation. Why 
must that straggling sunbeam point with ac- 
cusing finger at those dark stains on the 
wall? She might have taken those stains 
out. The broken furniture might have been 
mended; such stolid ways as these madden 
men. A pile of accumulated letters; they 
were chiefly bills and threats from exasper- 
ated creditors long unpaid. Patients were 
becoming fewer and fewer day by day. Sit- 
ting down to the dreary table he drank many 
cups of tea, eating nothing. A spirit de- 
canter on the sideboard winked a sunbeam 
from its cut surface with the old familiar 
temptation in its sparkle. Strange, but it 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


41 


had no power this morning, at the very mo- 
ment when the craving was wont to be most 
invincible. Nay, he turned from it with a 
sick disgust that grew and grew. Oh that 
Isabel would come home! She had never 
been so late before. He always found the 
eye he feared to meet at his board after such 
a scene as last night’s. She was used to 
shelter somewhere in the night, he asked not 
where, then they sat in wretched silence or 
spoke of some unavoidable triviality. He 
could have borne upbraiding, tears, curses 
better — he was wont to think. At first 
there had always been some attempt at apol- 
ogy. At first? It was now such a long- 
established thing he scarcely remembered 
the first turning out of doors, or even the 
first blow. That she remembered both he 
had no doubt. 

The first outbreak of the chained demon 
had occurred a year after marriage, after an 
influenza epidemic, during which he had 
overworked, with the malaria in his own 
blood, though not sufficiently to confine him 


42 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


to his bed, as befell all his medical brothers 
one after the other at the time, with half his 
household prostrate and his wife, then peril- 
ously near her first confinement, just recov- 
ering from the scourge. So then, in his hour 
of weakness, the fiend had met and mastered 
him. 

Isabel could never understand, she took 
the inebriated ravings seriously, her want of 
comprehension led to quarrelling and re- 
crimination. But one day she understood. 
It was then that she lost her unborn child 
and went near to losing her life as well. 

That had been the end of their happiness. 
She had forgiven; he had promised amend- 
ment. But there had been no more joy. So 
he lost heart and went from bad to worse. 

After this wretched attempt to breakfast 
he went out on some necessary errands, vis- 
ited some long-suffering patients and re- 
turned to his desolate h6use. Still no Isa- 
bel. He exhausted himself in conjecture 
and supposition, questioned the faithful 
Charlotte as to her mistress’s habitual resort 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


43 


on such occasions, and sent her round with 
inquiries. But no one had seen Mrs. Arnott 
that day. 

He went up to the darkened room in 
which the little body lay among flowers, 
white and fragrant. He wondered that the 
mother could keep away from it. Women 
love to nurse their griefs and cling des- 
perately to the vacated shrines of their 
idols; he often had to force mothers away 
from tiny corpses. It must have been Isa- 
bel who washed and straightened Harry 
for his grave, but to leave him in the open 
street on the doorstep! How could she 
thus war against her instincts? Was her 
anger greater than her grief, even greater 
than her love? 

Not very long ago he had come home at 
dusk and paused at the open door of this 
dim, fireless room to see Harry enthroned 
on the sofa where he now lay dead, in the 
firelight, rosy and laughing; kneeling at his 
baby feet was his mother, worshipping him, 

holding some shining toy at which he 
4 


44 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


clutched with pretty babble and crows of de- 
light. The toy was dropped and the boy 
caught and smothered with kisses till he 
kicked and scolded himself free, when the 
game began again. Firelight danced on 
golden curl, dimpled cheek, and round, soft, 
baby arm; also upon a woman’s beautiful 
face, softened by love and alight with a joy 
that faded at his own appearance. Poor 
woman! She had had one strong consola- 
tion in the squalid misery of her life, and 
there it lay, white and cold and dead by his 
hand, before him. And where now was that 
happy mother? 

He clinched his hands till the nails 
wounded the palms and his teeth till they 
ached, but he did not feel it. He made some 
fresh disposition of the flowers and white 
drapery the maids had placed there. So, he 
thought, a mother would like to see her little 
one. The sun was still in the sky, but there 
must be lights ready in case she did not re- 
turn till dusk. Children were coming out of 
school; he heard them in the street, dancing 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


45 


by with shouts and laughter. A fluty boy- 
voice was calling ‘‘ Mother.” Harry would 
never go to school, or laugh or shout or 
sing, or call “ Mother.” The sturdy little 
f®rm and round cheeks seemed to reproach 
him in their mute stillness, demanding the 
cup of life, thus shattered at the first sip. He 
was made so strongly and so well, so fit for 
life and all its battles and triumphs. ‘‘ Why 
am I robbed,” the rosebud mouth seemed to 
say, “ of my threescore and ten years of life? 
What have I done, that I should so soon be 
scattered to the elements? You owed me my 
body’s life, who caused it. I had but you to 
cherish it. I was quite unable to fight for 
it myself. Where is the merry active boy- 
hood such as you enjoyed — all the magic of 
wakening fancy and unfolding intelligence, 
all the marvel and mystery of opening mind 
and heart? Where is the flowering of ado- 
lescence and manho^od, of power and pas- 
sion, hope and aspiration, the keen joys of 
doing and daring, acquiring knowledge and 
exercising skill? Where the fairy dreams of 


46 the WORLD’S MERCY, 

the ideal, the illimitable possibilities of life? 
All that men ever were I might have been.” 

He would have given his own life twice 
over to recall the life to that sweet little 
body, give all he had ever hoped for one 
sound from the frozen lips. Had he not 
always been going to reform for Harry’s 
sake, and had he not been more proud 
of this sturdy little fellow than of all the 
others? 

The day darkened to its decline as he sat 
there, listening to the mute reproaches of 
the dead boy, till his brain seemed one flame, 
shapes loomed threatening in the shadows, 
and the heart within him was one throb of 
agony. Then he turned away and went 
shivering to his lonely fireside, still pursued 
by reproaching phantoms of the boy, the 
youth, and the man the dead baby should 
have been. Charlotte brought him tea and 
coffee, hot soups and food, but he turned 
from all but the tea, and either crouched 
miserably over the fire or paced restlessly up 
and down the room, listening and watching 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


47 

and hoping against hope for Isabel’s step and 
voice. 

At last, when the household had long 
gone to rest, he went to his room, leav- 
ing, as Isabel had done the night before, a 
banked-up fire and light, with a sad sense of 
the futility of it, and lay dressed on the bed, 
wakeful and tormented with horrible fears. 
He had left the street door unlocked. 
At times he fancied a hand on the lock and 
started up to feel the silence broken now 
and again by a solitary footstep or be- 
lated wheels. He thought of Isabel’s 
vigils on that same bed and the violence 
and degradation with which they too often 
ended. 

Poor Isabel! He began to wonder how 
women bore these things. If she were un- 
forgiving, she had a good deal to forgive; if 
resentful, much to resent. Once in pre- 
nuptial days a drunken man had crossed 
their path in a country road. His indig- 
nation had been great that such a sight 
should insult her eyes. Her shudder of 


48 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


repulsion and look of horror and disgust, 
as she clung to his arm and he led her rap- 
idly away haunted him. “ He poisons the 
sunshine,” she told him afterward. Poor 
Isabel! 


CHAPTER III 


THE FORLORN HOPE 

Next morning was sunny and bright, 
with a sparkle of hoar frost in the air. Hol- 
lies and arbutus trees outside the window of 
a red-gabled house beyond the town gleamed 
in ruddy light; robins and thrushes hopped 
over the whitened grass that smoked in the 
sunbeams, expecting crumbs. Dr. Marston, 
the leading practitioner of the place, was sit- 
ting at table with his face buried in a news- 
paper, sipping coffee and eating his break- 
fast in hurried, alternate jerks, while his wife 
supplied his wants and watched for an oppor- 
tunity to put in some necessary word before 
he was off and away for the morning. A 
boy and girl chattered together over their 
breakfast, and then jumped up and danced off 
with their books to their respective schools. 

49 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


50 

Then the doctor threw down his hastily 
conned paper and swallowed his coffee with 
cheerful satisfaction, and Mrs. Marston 
poured in her tale and received her answer 
with affectionate pleasure. . 

“ By the way,” the doctor added, “ Ar- 
nott has lost his baby. Poor woman, I am 
sorry for her.” 

“ Oh, I was going to inquire to-day. 
The last account was, ‘ going on well.’ Poor 
thing! ” 

I wish you would call on her oftener, 
Marian. She must need a friend. It’s an 
awful life for a sensitive, refined creature like 
poor Mrs. Arnott.” 

‘‘ Oh, she’s so reticent and unsociable. 
Always out or engaged when people come. 
Once when I called there was a horrid scene; 
she was quite overcome. ‘ Don’t come 
again,’ she said when I went ; ^ there is no 
help. One can but hide up these sores. I 
would leave him but for the child.’ Then it 
came out that she had nothing of her own 
and nobody but a married brother to go to.” 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


51 


“ Poor chap! ” 

“ Poor chap, indeed! Poor woman! 
For pity’s sake, Robert, don’t waste pity on 
that brute.” 

“ No waste, my dear. Arnott might 
have done so well. He’s an extremely good 
surgeon. Not bad-hearted. His manner is 
pleasant and reassuring; a little bluff, per- 
haps.” 

“ Not bad-hearted! I wonder what men 
can be made of when I hear them judging 
and excusing one another. A drunken 
brute who turns his wife into the street at 
night, who knocks her about by day, neg- 
lects his business and ruins his prospects! 
Not bad-hearted! When everybody knows 
why that poor, broken-hearted thing goes 
about in a thick veil! Of course I shall call 
presently and see what I can do for her; 
equally, of course, she won’t see me and the 
brute will be drunk.” 

'' My dear! ” 

Respectability was written in large char- 
acters all over Dr. Marston, propriety was 


52 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


in his every word and look, yet he was es- 
teemed a kind, even a genial man. No 
matter at what hour or in what extremity 
of peril he was summoned, he was always 
speckless; his sedate collar fresh, his black 
tie beautifully knotted, his diamond pin 
twinkling upon it, his beard never more than 
six hours old. It was rumoured that he 
slept in the diamond pin and had himself 
shaved and brushed at intervals during the 
night. It was certain that the diamonds 
had twinkled fresh hope into many a de- 
spairing heart, and the gloss of the silk hat 
and precision of the frock coat steadied 
many shaken nerves. There was reassurance 
in the glitter of his sleeve links, pulses stead- 
ied at the tick of his solid gold watch and 
quieted under his cool and steady fingers. 
Even disease had to behave properly under 
that grave and searching eye; there was no 
skulking from that penetrating gaze by the 
most insidious malady: out from the most 
secret recesses of the system it had to come 
with its longest name distinctly labelled 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


53 


Upon it. No one but his wife had ever sus- 
pected Robert Marston of weakness, and 
even she was at times impressed by his per- 
fection and awed by his superiority. 

“ The brute will be drunk,” she repeated 
firmly. “ No doubt he neglected the poor 
child and knows it. So he will have to 
drown his remorse. I wonder she didn’t in- 
sist on his calling some one in to attend the 
little boy.” 

“ Poor Arnott! ” repeated Dr. Marston, 
unshaken. “ I shall be in to luncheon, my 
dear,” he added in the hall, as he pulled his 
coat on. 

“Well, Arnott, well!” he said, when, a 
little later, he stepped into the Arnotts’s 
darkened, defaced room, his grave, calm face 
distorted in the shattered mirror. “ This is 
a sad business for you — a very sad business.” 

Arnott remembered vaguely, while re- 
signing his hand to his brother practitioner’s 
continuous warm shake, that the latter had 
refused to meet him in consultation some 
time since, and wondered why he had come. 


54 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ I came to see what I could do for you,” 
the visitor continued. “ See patients for 
you, or, in short, anything there is to be 
done. Mrs. Marston hopes to be of some 
service to Mrs. Arnott. In the meantime, 
how are you both? Upset, of course. 
You’ve had no sleep. That’s wrong, very 
wrong. You can’t bring the poor little man 
back, you know. I hope there was not 
much suffering. Bronchitis? Well, that soon 
carries off an infant. Come now, let us hear 
all about it. A fine little fellow, the picture 
of health. But the healthy ones get these 
acute attacks, you remember; the little frail 
life is so soon quenched. I wish you had sent 
for me, though of course you did all that could 
be done. You’ve eaten nothing to-day, my 
friend. Come, let us have the pulse. This 
won’t do, you know — won’t do — won’t do.” 

Arnott looked hopelessly into the grave, 
wholesome face, set in its gray garnish of 
hair, and read the sympathy in the shrewd, 
clear eyes, responding by monosyllables and 
resigning his hand to the professional clasp. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


55 

I’m a miserable man,” he burst out at 
last. “ I was drunk at the time.” 

“ You’ve been drinking pretty freely for 
some time, by all appearances, my poor 
friend,” the doctor added tranquilly. 
“ You’ve pulled up just in time, Arnott. 
Perhaps the poor little boy’s death may be 
a turning point for you — who knows? The 
poor mother! For her it may be a blessing 
in disguise. It’s a sad pity, you know — a sad 
pity: a man with your knowledge and 
capacity. The rest of us would give some- 
thing to be able to operate as you did in that 
appendicitis case. Let me treat you, dear fel- 
low. You’ll have a hard fight now, with this 
trouble upon you. But I needn’t tell you 
where it will end if you don’t make a stand. 
Mrs. Arnott is young for all this trouble, 
poor soul. You’ll make a stand for her sake, 
eh? You’ve got a will, you know, if you will 
exercise it. Don’t stay indoors and brood. 
How is she? ” 

“ Heaven knows,” returned Arnott, fix- 
ing his gloomy eyes despairingly on the doc- 


56 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


tor’s kind face; “ I don’t. She’s not been 
heard of since — since — I turned her out into 
the bitter night and killed her child. Yes, 
you may well start and drop my hand. That’s 
how he came by his death, Marston.” 

“Poor chap — poor, unfortunate chap!” 
said the doctor, laying his strong, firm hand 
on George’s heaving shoulder. “ A stern 
warning for you, Arnott. But don’t despair, 
man; don’t despair. Now about the poor 
wife. She must have left some clew to her 
whereabouts. She must be found. No 
doubt her resentment at present overbears 
everything. But in time that will soften — 
women forgive so much.” 

“ And so little,” added George. “ I 
think my wife had long ago come to hate 
me. She never forgave the first — burst.” 

“ And you never forgave her for being 
wronged, eh? Come, you must make her 
forget. Think what she has suffered — is suf- 
fering.” 

“ Think? I’ve been thinking of it all 
night long. I shall think of it while I have 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


57 


any brain left. I’ve ruined her, spoilt her 
home, destroyed her happiness, killed her 
children, outraged her feelings, made her a 
byword and a spectacle. Great Heavens, 
Marston, what must it be to have a hog for 
a husband, to be subject to the violence of a 

drunken savage ” 

Come, come, come. Useless to brood. 
Find her, comfort her, make her a happier 
home.” 

“ I had to pawn things for the very cof- 
fin,” he sobbed. “ I’m threatened with bail- 
iffs. See what I’ve done to this room! My 
practice is gone. But if she would only — 
only come back! ” 

“ She’ll come back, man, never fear. No 
doubt she is afraid to come back yet. She 
doesn’t know what she may find; dreads the 
hog and savage you spoke of. If, as you 
say, she was quite destitute of clothing, she 
must be at hand. Probably ill in bed some- 
where, stunned with the double shock. A 
woman cannot go far with neither clothes 
nor money. She’ll recover, send for her 


58 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


clothes, and in time let you bring her back. 
Now, look here. I’ll go into your surgery 
and make up something for you. Then 
you’ll let me diet you and put you under a 
strict regimen, and in a week or two you’ll be 
your own man again. And don’t let your 
tempter be within reach of you. A reaction 
will follow all this agitation, and then you 
know what to expect.” 

“♦No trace of a woman who left her home 
in a nightdress? ” cried Mrs. Marston. 
“ Robert, she is in the river. The tide will 
have carried her out to sea by this time.” 

“ I fear that you may be right, my dear, 
but don’t let Arnott think it, for the love of 
Heaven. Yet there is a strong presumption 
against it, in the fact that another life is in- 
volved in hers. Instinct is strong, especially 
that instinct.” 

“ Oh, but a drunkard’s child! And after 
this tragedy. The river, Robert, the river! 
A pond or stream by this time ” 

“ Then, my dear, think of that bitter cold 
night, the exposure, and the mental agony 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


59 


together. But, in that case, we shall know 
before many days. I cling to the hope that 
she is sheltered under some good Samari- 
tan’s roof, prostrate with a grief from which 
she will presently recover. Let us stand by 
the man, Marian, at all events, if only for 
her sake. I can lend him a little money. 
His father may help him. That will be 
something toward a fresh start — expecting 
the poor wronged wife the main motive; 
though, to be candid, the kindest thing 
would be to put a pistol to his head without 
delay.” 

All these possibilities respecting the miss- 
ing wife had suggested themselves to the 
unhappy Arnott over and over again, with 
more or less lurid accompaniments of horror 
and pain, as days glided on, the little body 
was borne to its resting place, and the ever- 
expected footstep was still unheard. But 
always that faint possibility of the mother 
instinct preserving life triumphed over abso- 
lute despair, and made a motive to live on 
and struggle with bitterest temptation. 


6o 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


Will she come? — she will come. The two 
phrases beat like a pulse through all his 
thoughts, sufferings, and struggles. The 
pale, rigid face and scornful eyes that he had 
of late grown to fear and dislike vanished 
from remembrance, and were replaced by the 
young one in its fresh beauty, illumined by 
love and happiness, a face unbruised, bright 
eyes not yet outraged by drunken violence 
and hideous experience. Old memories 
woke and lived, rending and torturing the 
long-deadened heart. The first time of see- 
ing her, the trivialities that brought them 
more closely acquainted, the singular intensi- 
fying of life and vividness of enjoyment that 
seemed to have no underlying cause, the 
growing consciousness of acute pleasure in 
the society of one, the sudden joyous ago- 
nizing revelation, brought about in a flash, 
by Heaven knows what trifle, that this was 
love of purest type and intensity. These 
things so long out of mind made the pres- 
ent seem doubly hideous and incredible. 
He had taken a lovely blossom of woman- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


6l 


hood to himself. He had been so proud 
of her. 

He began to be always listening for the 
light young footstep of those days, not the 
weary, listless one of later years, and looking 
for the slender, springy form and young, 
happy face, not for that white and contempt- 
uous yet fearful countenance, marred by 
violence. Sometimes her laugh, heart-whole 
and pleasant, seemed to echo through the 
desolate, house, or some smart repartee or 
lively sally sounded again — how gay and 
bright she used to be! He had forgotten 
that she had not laughed for so long. She 
had danced well. She used to sing charm- 
ingly. His people had thought much of 
her. 

Then he would see her waiting, waiting 
in dread and disgust for his staggering step, 
recall the furtive interrogation of her glance 
and the heartsick certainty with which it 
was averted from his dull and stupid gaze, 
recall things that cannot be spoken and that 
she had borne. Again he would see her in 


62 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


the bitter night wind, shivering and shudder- 
ing, creeping into some grudged corner with 
shame and pain, see her nursing the poor 
boy, with spasms of fear and hope, see her 
vainly trying to shelter him on that last 
night. Then — a terrible face, frozen and 
still, would look up with sightless eyes full 
of horror and despair from some ditch or 
sheltering thicket. Surely it would be dis- 
covered ar.d brought home one day, and the 
eyes, fixed forever in stony despair, would 
never cease to follow him, piercing through 
day and night, life and death, sleeping and 
waking — through the depths of the sea, the 
distance of years, and the darkness of the 
grave, and asking, always asking, for her 
children and her desecrated love and out- 
raged faith, her shattered hope and crushed 
self-respect. With these visions the old 
temptation had power, but there was no 
means of yielding in the house, and at these 
times he took refuge with the Marstons or 
even with kind, homely Charlotte, and they 
knew how to help him. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 63 

The bailiffs came, and after a short so- 
journ were removed. George Arnott’s fa- 
ther paid off his debts and set him on his 
feet once more. Then the servants were 
sent away — all except Charlotte and a non- 
descript boy — the stable and its contents 
given up. The broken things were removed 
from the house and the stain covered with a 
fresh wall paper. The house was somewhat 
bare and very desolate, but clean and orderly, 
and with relics of the child and Isabel’s per- 
sonal possessions in their accustomed places 
to welcome her. 

Sometimes Charlotte found him, his face 
of a livid pallor, with clinched teeth and 
hands, struggling with an agony of desire for 
his subtile enemy; sometimes sitting for 
hours nerveless and exhausted, numb and 
dumb with heavy despair. For each mood 
she had some remedy, ineffectual in itself, but 
possessing the sovereign balm that human 
sympathy and affection never fail to bring. 
Cups of tea were Charlotte’s panacea for 
every human ill — mental, moral, or physical. 


64 the WORLD’S MERCY 

These her master sometimes derided, some- 
times raged at, sometimes drank, without in 
the least shaking her faith in them. 

About a month after the double loss 
there was a mission to Barton town, and the 
good Charlotte, worn and saddened by her 
late experiences, found herself one evening at 
an informal service in a homely room full of 
working people on rough benches, singing 
hymns to swinging tunes, joining in prayers, 
or listening to brief and homely addresses. 

A tall man, with burning eyes and a sort 
of masterful gentleness in his strong and 
deeply lined face, pervaded the room, dressed 
in a cassock, distributing books and leaflets. 
Now and then he stopped by some one who 
had attracted his piercing gaze, and mur- 
mured in an attentive ear something unheard 
by the crowd. A woman sitting in front of 
Charlotte had been crying bitterly till he 
came to her, laid a kind hand on her shoul- 
der, listened attentively to what she told him 
and said something that was evidently con- 
soling in reply, making an appointment for 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


65 


her and recording it in a notebook. The 
same thing happened with a shamefaced lad, 
whose broken murmurs were so low and 
stammering that the missioner had difficulty 
in gathering their meaning. Charlotte was 
impressed; but it was not until the assembly 
was melting away after the final hymn and 
benediction that this man caught her wistful 
gaze and paused by her side with, “ W ell, my 
child, is it sin, or sorrow, or doubt, or only 
ignorance? ” in a voice that went to her 
heart, making her give way with a sudden 
sob and falter: 

“ Please, sir; it’s master.” 

“Yes?” The clean-shaven face showed 
a kind and grave interest, but no surprise; 
the long, strong hand touched her shoulder 
with magnetic, reassuring effect. The mis- 
sioner looked simply expectant; yet Char- 
lotte felt, while her eyes seemed to be exam- 
ining the fringed ends of his sash, that every 
line in her face and figure was being read like 
the characters of a printed page. 

“ Poor master has dreadful trouble, and 


66 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


he doesn’t believe anything.” She added, 
“ Couldn’t you come and comfort him? ” 

He patted her shoulder gently with a 
softened light in his eyes, glanced round to 
see that they were not overheard, and said: 
“ Tell me his name and his trouble, and we 
will pray together for him.” So she told 
him briefly of George’s recent losses. 

Ten minutes later found the two in the 
street at George Arnott’s door. 

“ Tell your master some one to see him. 
If he asks who it is say a clergyman,” was the 
order when Charlotte opened the door and 
took him to the consulting room, whither 
George at once repaired on the announce- 
ment. 

“ It certainly is little Arnott,” the mis- 
sioner said, bending his keen gaze upon 
George and offering his hand. “ Don’t you 
remember Philip Sternroyd, of the Sixth 
Form, and the lickings you used to get? I 
am here as a missioner with some of our 
brotherhood — known as the Upton Fathers.” 

“ Yes, I remember Sternroyd,” George 


THE WORLD’S MERCY. 


67 


replied listlessly, his sombre glance falling 
after a moment’s interrogation, and his hand 
remaining unresponsive in the other’s warm 
grasp. “ I was your fag. You soon went 
up to Oxford. You took honours, I think.” 

“ And you? — we used to hear so little of 
our juniors.” 

I got a scholarship — Cambridge — but 
— only my degree. Then — hospitals — I’d 
gone the pace at Cambridge, but steadied 
afterward. I’m a wreck, but no matter.” 

“ Poor lad! Well, it’s an old story, only 
they don’t always steady afterward. Poor 
lad! And heavy sorrow has come upon you, 
I hear. That nice young servant of yours 
brought me here, don’t you know. Come 
and comfort master, was the order, so I 
came. Then I remembered little Arnott as 
we came along. I’m awfully glad to see you 
again, Arnott; it brings back old times. 
I’ve often said to myself, ' Wonder what be- 
came of little Arnott?’ You were a jolly 
little chap and took your lickings like a 
man. I’m afraid you didn’t always deserve 


68 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


them. Do say you’re glad to see me, 
Arnott.” 

“ If I could be glad of anything I might,” 
was the heavy rejoinder. 

“ My lad, you are in the depths,” the 
missioner said, his voice deepening, his face 
becoming solemn. “ The sorrow^s of death 
have encompassed you. The pains of hell 
have got hold upon you. It is in your face 
and voice and the touch of your hand. You 
have recently lost, I am told, both wife and 
child — that is sorrow enough. But it’s 
deeper even than that. It is spiritual an- 
guish and wrestling with the powers of dark- 
ness. George, you may not believe in God, 
but you are at this moment fighting on his 
side; and you are not alone, believe me. I 
am here by what seems a curious chance and 
is the will of Heaven, whose accredited min- 
ister I am, to tell you that you are conquer- 
ing and to conquer in this awful strife; that 
though you think yourself in darkness, you 
are near the light; that what seems to you 
intolerable agony is the benediction of your 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


69 


Heavenly Father, drawing you from the mire 
of misery to His breast; that though you 
have lien among the pots, you are to be as 
the wings of a dove; and though blind, you 
are to see. The Almighty arms are round 
about you, the begrimed powers of Heaven 
are succouring you. I am sure that I am 
sent to tell you this and convey the blessing 
of God to you this night.” 

Silence and the missioner’s magnetic 
glance fixed upon the gloomy, despairful 
eyes, in which some faint light of hope 
seemed kindling, and wonder and doubt, an- 
guish and shame, and fear struggling amid 
a curious, wistful interrogation that searched 
the veracity of the man’s face and words. 
After this long interchange of looks that on 
neither side blenched a moment, a deep, 
sobbing sigh shook George Arnott’s strong 
chest and he opened his parched lips. 

“ And if I am an infidel? ” he panted. 

“ You will not long be an infidel. If you 
cannot yet believe you will still fight on in 
the darkness; but not alone. For the pow- 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


70 

ers of light defend you and the great cloud 
of witnesses encompass you.” 

“ A murderer? ” 

‘‘ For even such there is pardon and peace 
and abundance of healing.” 

“ But if I have murdered a soul as well as 
a body? ” he whispered, almost hissed. 

“ Then God help you, George Arnott ! ” 
the missioner replied, with a shudder and a 
changed face. “ He can help, for His 
mercy is infinite,” he added. 

“Ah! but the murdered soul?” in a 
voice that shook the priest’s heart. 

“No soul can be murdered without its 
own consent,” the latter returned. “ Led 
astray, hurt, darkened, but its blood upon its 
own head. Man must let that alone for- 
ever.” 

“ And rejoice in eternal bliss while the 
murdered soul is in torment? And rejoice 
on earth with that knowledge? ” cried 
George. 

The missioner changed colour and trem- 
bled. He was still a moment before he re- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


n 

plied, in the deep, bell-like voice that had 
moved so many hearts: 

“ His mercy endureth forever. He bids us 
pray, he bids us hope, bids us love — forever^'' 
dwelling deeply on the last word. 

“ Ah, but does He? Do not Christians 
preach and teach and believe that His mercy 
ends with the grave? ” was the despairing 
rejoinder. 

“ Nay, nay. His wrath endureth but the 
twinkling of an eye, my brother; but His 
mercy endureth forever.” 

'' That’s a broad faith, Sternroyd.” 

“ As broad as the eternal heavens, Arnott, 
and as true. It is so written in the Holy 
Book. Though we know nothing, we be- 
lieve much; we hope more. We are sure 
of love and forgiveness. We formulate and 
accept dogma, we obey the church, we know 
the power of prayer and of sacraments from 
our own experience; but we believe in One 
above and beyond all that, who is not bound 
by man’s limitations, whose thoughts are not 
as man’s thoughts. Trust, George, trust. 


72 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


and love, fight, and conquer, for you are no 
coward — no weakling.” 

They had been standing face to face, 
hand in hand, the magnetic personality of 
the missioner growing from moment to mo- 
ment upon the desolate and hungry heart of 
the penitent. But Sternroyd was fasting 
and very weary, a sigh of physical need and 
nervous reaction escaped him, his hand re- 
laxed its clasp, the fire of his eyes went out, 
and with it the new hope in George’s storm- 
tossed soul. 

“ I could trust you, Sternroyd,” he said 
sadly, as each sank into a chair, “ but I am 
neither brave nor strong, and you don’t 
know what a brute I have been.” 

I know the secrets of many sinful and 
degraded souls. I know so much of the 
darker side of humanity that nothing could 
surprise me now. I see that you have 
been a heavy drinker, George, He who 
drinks unchains a legion of demons to run 
riot in his soul. We all know that. No 
doubt you have been a brute. But trust; 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


73 

if you cannot yet put your trust higher 
trust me” 

He looked at George as he spoke with 
the old magnetic light returning to his gaze, 
the old vibrant power to his voice. Then the 
desolate man’s heart opened to his comforter, 
and he trusted him and told him all. And 
when the missioner stepped out into the star- 
light and plodded back to his lodging with 
an uplifted heart in his tired body, the small 
hours being well advanced, hope and an ear- 
nest of future peace were awake in George’s 
soul. 

The Arnotts had mixed so little of late in 
the restricted society of Barton that poor 
Mrs. Arnott’s disappearance made no void 
in it, though the usual small-town rumours 
circulated: The Arnott’s baby dead. Poor 
little thing, and such a fine child! So sad for 
poor Mrs. Arnott! So Arnott drank? This 
would make him worse than ever. Was it 
true that he was violent? Known for a fact. 
That was why she gave up visiting. They 
were in debt. Why did he drink? His 


74 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


home not happy; something repellent in 
Mrs. Arnott. But where was Mrs. Arnott? 
No doubt, it was said later, she had left him; 
had but kept to him so long for the child’s 
sake. The sooner the brute drank himself 
to death the better. She had taken away his 
last chance. But Arnott did not know 
where his wife was. He was distracted with 
grief. No one knew where she was. The 
police were making inquiries. These things, 
with variations, were recited over tea tables, 
at clubs, in the streets. 

“ Why, Hedley,” some one said in the 
club smoking room on the evening of the 
missioner’s visit to George, “ you must have 
seen some lively scenes from your window if 
half they say is true. They say the poor 
thing was often turned out of doors in her 
nightdress and took refuge at the green- 
grocer’s in the middle of the night. Is that 
true? ” 

I don’t as a rule pass the night looking 
out of my sitting-room window,” was the 
reply, between biting the end off a cigar and 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


75 


lighting it. Oh, yes! I knew poor Mrs. 
Arnott by sight very well. Fine woman? 
She was tall and walked well. Of course 
there would be queer rumours if, as you say, 
she suddenly left her husband. Certainly 
IVe met Arnott. I thought him a surly 
brute. Thank you, my brother is better.” 

“ Wouldn’t he like somebody to call and 
cheer him up a bit? ” 

“ Thank you so much. Not yet, I think. 
He has to be kept very quiet, poor boy.” 

“ He’s been ill a long time. Surely he 
ought to have medical advice, Hedley. 
Why, he came at least a month ago. One 
stormy night, don’t you remember? ” 

‘‘ Oh, he’s all right — used to these at- 
tacks. He hates doctors. I and my land- 
lady manage him between us. Now I must 
go home and look after him. Good-night.” 

“ Something rather fishy about this sick 
brother of Hedley’s that nobody has ever 
seen, not even a doctor,” was the first remark 
after his exit. “ Yet he’s a steady fellow.” 

'' Hedley the spotless! Hedley the per- 
6 


76 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


feet! Well, why shouldn’t he have a sick 
brother, spotless or not? Fancy a woman 
in a nightdress running away and not being 
traced anywhere! It’s the want of clothes 
more than anything that balks the escaped 
convict. I used to know Mrs. Arnott. 
Rather a taking woman, tall and noticeable. 
I suspect her brute of a husband knows where 
she is. He’s been very grim and quiet and 
unsociable ever since.” 

“ Come, you don’t mean a police case.” 

I suspect his back garden or some cor- 
ner of his cellars holds a tragic secret, 
Mowbray. A light? The man is cowed 
and never stirs out except on business. The 
poor thing may have jumped into the river, 
but the body would have been found. Peo- 
ple don’t vanish like that by fair means.” 

“Arnott seemed a decent fellow when first 
he came. He attended my people; clever, 
kind, pleasant. But once he came three 
sheets in the wind, and my wife wouldn’t 
overlook it. Mrs. Arnott was sociable in 
those days, but — there was a something, a 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


77 

hardness — I don’t know, but I never cared for 
her. My wife said she was too superior. Still 
I do pity the poor thing and hope she’ll turn 
up all right again. So Hedley’s leaving, I 
hear? We shall be rid of a lot of virtue when 
he goes. His people are the great London 
solicitors, don’t you know. He came here 
for quiet after overwork.” 

The missioner went to George Arnott the 
next night and the next, and when the mis- 
sion was finished he wrote regularly to him. 
“ Something tells me that your wife is still in 
this life,” was a frequent phrase in these letters. 

George caught at the hope, and this kept 
him in Barton, where it gradually became 
known that his life had become regular and 
sober, even religious. 

A year passed with no trace of Isabel, 
then another year, and another, and still 
George Arnott hoped against hope for tid- 
ings of the missing wife, whose own relations 
had long given her up for lost. And still 
that hope was a defence from temptation in 
hours of weakness. 


CHAPTER IV 


PANSY 

The cottage, buried in flowers and green- 
ery, almost reached the forest at the kitchen- 
garden end, the flower garden opened on the 
highroad that cut across the green, which 
was surrounded by houses and gardens and 
the village church and rectory. A porch 
with seats in it shadowed the open door 
leading into the cool little hall, a plot of 
grass with flower beds, lilac bushes, an ar- 
bour and garden seats was in front, a row of 
beehives in the kitchen garden discernible 
from the side of the cottage, all was ordered 
comfort and rural peace, with picturesque 
charm in the ruddy brown xoof, steeply 
pitched, in orchard trees, box hedges, and 
forest background. 

A dark-eyed child with bronzy-brown 
78 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


79 


curls tumbling over her shoulders, danced 
and sang about the garden, making a play- 
mate of everything, as lonely children do. 
She was slender and graceful in her short 
frock and white sun hat, her height showing 
about five years of age, her joy in the sun- 
shine and summer air was the unconscious, 
unspoilt joy of a young animal unsouled. 
Hearing a man’s quick step upon the dusty 
road, she turned, continuing her inarticu- 
late, song, and danced down to the gate, 
where the postman stopped and delivered his 
letters to her. 

'' You won’t drop ’em, Missie, now,” he 
said, “ but take ’em straight to mother, eh? ” 

'' Straight to muvver, straight to muv- 
ver,” warbled the child to a tune of her own, 
dancing up to the porch, up the stairs, and 
into a first-floor room. A tall woman sat 
writing there at the open window, looking 
up as the little girl entered with a smile of 
unspeakable tenderness on her marked and 
weary face. 

“Who’ll buy my yetters, beautiful yet- 


8o 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


ters, fresh-gavvered yetters? ” the child sang, 
keeping her hands behind her, while the 
mother, entering into the game with the pa- 
tient readiness of custom, waited until the 
imp chose to dole out three or four letters, 
one by one. 

Zoo doesn’t yike zem,” she observed 
gravely, when three had been read and the 
fourth asked for. “ Yike zis one? ” 

The mother looked out of the window 
with frowning gravity after reading the 
fourth letter; read it again and sighed heav- 
ily. Then she turned to the child now lying 
on the carpet playing with the cat. 

Papa is not coming to-day after all. 
Pansy,” she said, with constrained sadness 
and another heavy sigh. 

Pansy smiled happily at this and ob- 
served that it was a good thing, because she 
need not now be good. 

‘‘ Fie, Pansy! Why do you say that? ” 

Me doesn’t yike to be good,” she ex- 
plained mournfully. And me doesn’t yike 
papa,” she added, with emphasis. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


8 


You are a very naughty child. Get up 
and be good directly,” the mother said, 
drawing her to her knee and looking into 
the pretty pouting face with the great vel- 
vety eyes that earned her name. “ Papa is 
very kind and good to you. But for him 
you would never have been born.” 

“ Me didn’t wan’t him to born me,” she 
pouted. 

“ Fie, Pansy, fie! All little girls love 
their father and mother. Why, if you had 
not been born you wouldn’t be alive now. 
Just think if I had no little Pansy,” she added, 
stroking the soft curls. 

“ Me doesn’t want to be ayive,” main- 
tained the rebel. 

“ Don’t you want to play in the garden 
and dance and sing and eat strawberries -” 

“ And keam ” was the quick interpo- 

lation. 

“ And be loved and see the bright sun 
and green fields, and hear pretty stories told? 
But you could not if you had never been 
born.” 


82 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


The great wondering eyes grew graver 
and graver as they absorbed the mother s 
glance and words. 

“ Wouldn’t there be nothing if I wasn’t 
borned? ” she asked. 

‘‘ Nothing for you, darling. Think of 
that and love papa.” 

Pansy shook her head slowly from side to 
side, squeezing up her eyes, into which the 
curls bobbed as she shook. '' Me doesn’t 
yike him,” she repeated firmly, opening her 
eyes with a defiant glance. 

Then I shall not like you. He is com- 
ing to-morrow morning. And if you are 
not good to him you shall not come in to 
dinner or have any strawberries or anything 
nice.” 

Pushing the impenitent Pansy away, the 
lady reread the letter with growing disquiet. 
Colder and colder were the letters, less and 
less frequent the visits that Mrs. Harris now 
received from her husband, whose business 
kept him chiefly in town, while her own and 
her daughter’s health obliged her to live in 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


83 


pure country air. She knew that he had 
long ceased to love her. She was beginning 
to fear that the solid residuum of friend- 
ship so often deposited by the effervescence 
of passion might vanish with it. 

“ Dear Belle ” the letter began, but 

that address was not necessarily loveless, nor 
was the ending, “ Yours, A. H.” So sorry 
to be unable to run down to-morrow, but 
hope to arrive at midday on Sunday,” was a 
dash of cold water, while “ I have something 
serious to discuss with you without delay ” 
produced a shiver of apprehension and deep- 
ened the care lines in the face. 

Arthur had of late been visibly bored by 
his rare sojournings at the cottage and hor- 
ribly polite; his icy civilities had cut her like 
whiplashes. She could better have borne 
ill-temper, fury, even violence — violence of 
words, not deeds. He had been absent and 
dreamy, too much preoccupied for conver- 
sation, except at cross-purposes. Worst of 
all, he now wearied of Pansy, took no inter- 
est in her droll sayings, and appeared to be 


84 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


relieved by her absence. Sweet Pansy! who 
could be indifferent to her innocent wiles 
and baby humours? how could mortal resist 
her beauty and witchery? ” she wondered, 
looking through tear-dimmed eyes at the 
little figure flitting about the garden. If 
Pansy could but know how much de- 
pended on Arthur’s affection for her, or if 
the little imp could but give up that disas- 
trous whim of disliking him! 

Next day the child was daintily arrayed 
to meet him, in delicate white embroideries, 
snowy plumed hat, and crimson sash. She 
was quite good in church — too well enter- 
tained by the music and the sight of so many 
people to be troublesome. The hot sun- 
shine made her languid and content to dance 
through the fields without detriment to her 
toilet when they came out afterward, so that 
a perfect picture of infantile beauty in fine 
raiment presented itself to the cold, blue 
gaze of the tall fair man she called father 
when he met them at the end of the third 
field, and a round sedate little face was lifted 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 85 

for him to kiss, a ceremony performed with- 
out emotion on either side. 

Some churchgoers witnessed this family 
scene with edification as they passed by — a 
respectable British father welcomed home by 
wife and child in serene, everyday fashion. 

“ How are you. Belle? Awfully good of 
you to meet me this hot day.” 

“ How are you, dear Arthur? You will 
be glad to rest in the cool after all this sun ” 
— the gentleman’s hat duly raised, the lady’s 
smile a little strained perhaps, a terrible wist- 
fulness, not evident to passers-by, in her 
gaze. 

“ Pity the Harrises are so unsociable,” 
was the comment of one churchgoer. 

They would be an acquisition to Forestside. 
A quiet, well-bred woman. He’s some- 
thing in the city. And yet his face is intel- 
lectual. They used to dine at the rectory 
sometimes when first they came; now they 
go nowhere.” 

He leaves her alone a great deal, my 
dear. What can she find to do all day with 


86 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


only that one child? They say she is liter- 
ary, but she is too well-dressed for that/' 

“ Why, nothing could be quieter or in 
better taste than her dress." 

“ But it takes a great deal of time and 
thought to dress quietly and in good taste. 
It is a fine art." 

“ That Harris is a wrong 'un, I suspect. 
Why has the wife no friends? " was another 
comment. 

The trio went sedately across the fields. 
Pansy, sobered by midday heat and church 
somnolence, walking between with a hand in 
each parent's, like the little maiden in Two 
Voices, the wife chatting with a cheeriness 
the husband knew to be spurious and could 
not resporul to, putting the blame of his own 
gloom upon the weather and the crowded 
Sunday train, as well as upon pressure of 
business that had hindered the usual Satur- 
day afternoon holiday. 

“ This horrid business," said Belle with 
forced playfulness; “it is a monster that de- 
vours more and more of your time." 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


87 


Ours is a growing practice as well as an 
old-established one,” he replied. “ And my 
father thinks of retiring, when I shall have 
a larger share in the partnership, and of 
course increased responsibility. There will 
be changes in many ways.” 

“ They will want you to spend more time 
with them, I fear, then, instead of less, as I 
had hoped,” she said, with a sinking heart. 

“ Naturally. The marvel is, that I could 
have got down so often before — and without 
suspicion,” he returned, not looking at her 
face, which turned gray under his words. 

“ At all events,” she said, as they entered 
the porch and he sank into a deep wicker 
chair in the grateful gloom, “ it is nice to 
have you to-day, dear, and we’ll make the 
best of it.” She bent as she spoke, and 
kissed him lightly on the forehead. He 
took it with passive endurance, almost re- 
sentment; the thing seemed {o him indeli- 
cate. He was convinced that she no longer 
loved him. She felt the caress herself as a 
stinging indignity forced upon her by cruel 


88 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


circumstance. He might at least, in com- 
mon courtesy, have returned the kiss, she 
thought. But he was quite certain that a 
perfunctory caress, much more a hated one, 
is the greater discourtesy. 

“ The cottage is charmingly cool,” he 
was pleased to say, with attempted gracious- 
ness, and she sighed as she withdrew to re- 
move her churchgoing attire. 

Then she played from his favourite com- 
posers as he sat in the shaded drawing-room 
that opened on to the garden and was scent- 
ed with its pinks and roses. He felt all the 
pleasantness and peace of these surroundings 
as he looked out beneath the lowered blinds 
across flower beds and garden hedge, away 
over tree-tops and blue bloom of distance, 
and remembered the ancient sweetness of 
this quiet, refined home and the welcome 
refuge it had been to him from the din and 
turmoil of a busy town life. 

“ Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse,'’ he re- 
flected, with genuine regret, observing the 
graceful figure at the piano, the pure profile 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 39 

of the face in shadows that hid the care lines 
and indefinable touches of time. 

“No, not that, please!” he exclaimed 
suddenly and sharply, with a note of pain in 
his voice, as the skilled touch began a noc- 
turne of Chopin’s charged with ethereal pas- 
sion. 

“ Not your favourite nocturne? Why — ” 

“ Not to-day,” he returned abruptly. 
“Let us have — ah! — that gavotte of 
Gluck’s,” he added in a voice almost tender 
by comparison. 

She wondered who now played the fa- 
vourite nocturne. He remembered yester- 
day, when Chopin’s music had been part of 
the business that had kept him from the cot- 
tage. 

There was no more music that day. She 
rose and stood by the flower-decked hearth, 
statuesque in the shadows, her white serge 
gown falling in firmly outlined folds to her 
feet, her face stern and sad. He looked 
straight before him through the window, his 
feet stretched far in front of him, his hands 


90 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


in his pockets, his head bent, his face in a 
frown. 

“ Is she sufficiently prepared? ’’ he was 
wondering, wishing the day ended, dreading 
what was before them, feeling it intolerable. 

“Was ever pain like this? ’’ she was ask- 
ing herself, her mouth rigid, her hands 
clinched, her glance upon the young man’s 
fair face, till he looked up and caught the 
agonized expression with a keen heart-pang. 
“ I should have written it,” he thought, 
“and yet — how could I? Things have to 
be explained. Why, Belle,” he added aloud, 
“ what a blaze of flowers you’ve got this 
year! You must spend hours over those 
beds.” 

“ Hours and hours,” she replied, with a 
wan smile. “ Such lonely hours,” she 
thought. 

The luncheon was taken with spurious 
gaiety, a presentiment on the woman’s part 
that it would be their last together and at- 
tempts on the man’s at arranging what he 
had to say after luncheon making conversa- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


91 


tion spasmodic, while Pansy prattled at will 
unrebuked, and so far unbent as to allow her- 
self afterward to be mounted on Arthur’s 
shoulder and carried through the kitchen 
garden, across the meadow into the forest, 
where the silent mossed paths and overarch- 
ing foliage filtered with sunlight made a re- 
freshing contrast to the full blaze of summer 
over field and farm beyond. 

“ What about the organist’s appoint- 
ment? ” he asked in the meadow. 

“ Only given to a regular communicant. 
They will make no exception in my favour.” 

“ A pity. It would have been a begin- 
ning and a nucleus for music lessons and all 
sorts. The cottage is large enough for 
boarders, a few delicate children to educate 
with Pansy, and day pupils v/ould soon 
gather round.” 

But where are my references, my 
friends, the vouchers to my high principles, 
and other requisites for training children? ” 
she asked bitterly. 

“ How about paying guests? ” 

7 


92 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ That would be more feasible, especially 
during the summer months. But I am so 
utterly cut off from every one that you would 
have to find the guests and the references — 
and — it would be very awkward, dear Arthur, 
to say the least. You must not think that 
I make obstacles,” she added, with a piteous 
catch in her voice. I am, indeed, most anx- 
ious to — to — do something, but it is not 
easy. I think of Pansy’s future and remem- 
ber that it may be difficult for you to ” a 

stifled sob stopped her breath. 

“ It 'S awfully hard for a woman,” Arthur 
rejoined gloomily. 

They had now reached a favourite haunt 
at a little distance from the meadow, a 
mossed bank at the foot of a group of tall 
beeches, backed and surrounded with horn- 
beam and oak trees and a maze of under- 
growth. Before them the woodlands sloped 
steeply, offering a vista of blue bloom, end- 
ing in uplands clothed with cornfield, pasture, 
and farm, and dotted with trees. A little 
clearing of mossy grass, full of wood flowers, 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


93 


bushes, and fallen trunks in the foreground, 
made a playground for Pansy, who flitted 
about like a large butterfly or disappeared 
among the hazels, crooning to herself. Pleas- 
ant sylvan sounds and scents were in the 
shadowy nook, vague murmurs and rustlings 
and a quiet sense of unseen life filled the sun- 
checkered air. They had spent many pleas- 
ant hours in that sequestered spot, tender 
and passionate words had been spoken there, 
never, never to be repeated, so Belle remem- 
bered, as she sat in the sweet shadows, a posy 
of cow wheat and wood betony in her hand, 
while Arthur smoked and Pansy played. 

“You see,” he said presently, throwing 
the cigar end away and taking a less loung- 
ing posture on the sylvan seat by her side, 
“ we can never make wrong right, and we 
have done grievous wrong.” 

“ Dear Arthur, what could we have 
done? ” 

“ It was hard, we were forced by circum- 
stances, we thought ourselves justified. He 
was as dead to you — = — ” 


94 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


And our solemn vow to each other 
surely hallowed what was already hallowed 
by our love.” 

“ So we persuaded ourselves, but it was 
not ” 

“Ah! you never really loved me, Arthur. 
It was only pity, my need was so desperate, 
my helplessness so awful.” 

“ It was never truly love on your side. 
Belle; your need, as you say, was so desper- 
ate. A more desolate being than you — alone, 
defenceless, exposed to that bitter night — 
was never seen. But I had been attracted by 
you long before and my feeling was very 
strong. Such beauty, such misery, such ut- 
ter need could not but rouse feelings too 
quickly taken for love ” 

“ Quickly? Why, it was a year be- 
fore ” 

“ What did I feel for you when you lay 
sick with sorrow and absolutely dependent 
on me in my rooms, do you suppose? When 
I laid the poor murdered child at the brute’s 
door? I respected your feelings and was 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


95 


silent. It was not easy to invent a sudden 
brother, even when the hair was cropped and 
male attire provided. And when I was tak- 
ing you across France and Italy, and when 
the boy’s dress had to be given up, and when 
I brought you here and Pansy came? ” 

“Ah! what do I not owe to you? Life 
and reason, hope and love. Oh, I was grate- 
ful; I am grateful. I who came to you mad 
with misery and insult, beggared of every- 
thing, even of my sweet dying Harry, pos- 
sessed only of bare life and the hope of 
Pansy. How could I not love you, 
Arthur? ” 

“ If you would have consented to get 

him to divorce you ” 

“And take Pansy? Never! I had 
vowed that he should have no more inno- 
cents to murder and maltreat.” 

“ The innocents always came before me; I 
was never first with you. Still, even if you 
had allowed the divorce, such a marriage 
would have broken my mother’s heart. And 
if the child ” he paused, Isabel sighed. 


96 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


both looked toward the unseen churchyard 
in which lay their three months’ babe. 

“ The child might have softened her 
heart,” Isabel suggested presently. 

“ Never. My people are stern Puritans. 
My mother does not, and I hope never will, 
suspect. My father has heard something 
and has made conditions with me. I am to 

reform, to settle down ” 

“You are going to marry!” she cried, 
with sudden, sharp pain. 

“ What am I to do? ” he returned, look- 
ing straight before him at the blue distance, 
across which Pansy’s light, white-clad figure 
waltzed, decked with honeysuckle wreaths. 
“ Of course my people expect it. The third 
generation, they say, is due. I am over 
thirty, and of course I cannot blind myself 
to the fact that — we have done wrong, that 
— it must be given up,” he added, with 
gasping breath, not daring to look at Isa- 
bel, who sat by his side, her hands clasped 
round her knees, her face bent upon them 
and hidden, while a low, suppressed cry 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


97 

escaped her and her body shook with her 
pain. 

The hum of many insects, chirp of grass- 
hoppers, soft sighing of the summer breeze 
in leafy tree tops. Pansy’s song and laughter, 
lowing of cattle in meadows, and Isabel’s 
sobbing breath were the only sounds for 
some minutes, during which Arthur still 
stared fixedly at the blue distance and frol- 
icking child, his fine and well-cut features 
white, his mouth stern, his teeth clinched. 
The woman bowed in agony by his side, and, 
striving to conquer it, knew quite well that 
the death knell of hope had sounded for her 
in his words, the realization of her worst fore- 
bodings. The bitterness of death was in her 
voice when at last she spoke, raising a hag- 
gard face, with drawn and despairing eyes. 

“ And your promise, your solemn, sacred 
promise to cleave to me, forsaking all other 
till death parts us? ” she cried. “ Oh, we 
were to be infinitely closer and dearer and 
truer to each other than the lawfully bound! 
It was to be a holier, more lasting union than 


98 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


any. More than father to my sweet one, my 
poor, worse than orphaned Pansy. The very 
precariousness was to give us security; the 
lack of legal bounds, the knowledge that we 
were at each other’s mercy, was to . draw us 
closer, to make us more careful to cherish our 
feelings, more chivalrous, more reverent of 
each other, more trustful. Oh, Arthur! 
Arthur!” 

“ W e were wrong. It was all sophistry,” 
he replied in a steely voice. 

It was love then; it is falsehood now,” 
she cried. “ You are tired of us. A younger 
face has caught your fickle fancy.” 

His face darkened and his lips tightened; 
a cold flash came from the blue eyes that, 
with all their habitual gentleness and kind- 
ness, had a steely substratum of chill impene- 
trability. 

‘‘ I must beg you to release me from a 
promise that should never have been made,” 
was his stern rejoinder, in a hard voice that 
cut deeper and was more humiliating than 
her husband’s blows and abuse had ever been. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


99 


‘‘ Oh, that you had never left your door 
that night — that I had died there on the 
doorstep with my poor baby! ” she gasped. 
“ But I was grateful, I am grateful,” she 
added quickly, struggling with the agony 
that added many apparent years to her 
thirty-five and ravaged the remains of her 
beauty, while the pain that Arthur felt re- 
fined and spiritualized his features and made 
him seem even younger and more handsome 
than ever. 

I was grateful, too; I am grateful and 
always shall be,” he returned in a gentler 
voice. 

“You? You had everything to give; I 
had nothing to give.” 

“ Nay, you had as much as I, even more, 
for you had yourself. Believe me. Belle, I 
am very grateful to you for those years of 
happiness. I shall never forget what I owe 
to you. It was unfortunate that we mistook 
a warm and close and exquisite friendship for 
a warmer and — purer and higher feeling. 
The companionship, the evf'l’^nge of thought 


lOO 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


and feeling, the home you gave me — and — 
Pansy has been a charming possession. But 
we did wrong, very wrong. I will do what I 
can for you, but I fear it will be little mate- 
rial aid that I can give. Duty is duty.” 

Does she know? ” cried Isabel with sud- 
den fierceness. 

Heaven forbid! Such knowledge is 
not for my dar — for a young and stain- 
less — oh, it would break her heart — crush 
her life!” 

Isabel rose, sick with anguish and the 
madness of jealousy, and moved impatiently 
away from these stabbing words. She re- 
membered Arthur’s first tenderness, his gen- 
tleness and chivalry and the peace and ex- 
quisite rdief of being free from the violence 
and squalid misery of her desecrated home; 
very well she remembered the soothing 
charm of this man’s tender deference and pro- 
tecting care. Into that exquisite peace had 
come the fascination of his companionship, 
the unexpected joy of intellectual converse 
and refined intimacy, the revelation of an 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


lOI 


entirely novel type of masculine character in 
the freshness of youth, and an austere kind 
of physical beauty. This was followed by a 
passion of gratitude and the gradual percep- 
tion of an admiration growing into love on 
Arthur’s side, and evoking such love and de- 
votion on hers as she had never felt for 
George even in the first fervour of unawak- 
ened youth. Arthur was indeed, in com- 
parison with George, Hyperion to a satyr. 
The struggle with conscience to a woman 
who had forgotten how to pray, and was cut 
off from every other tie, was only enough 
to cast fresh glamour upon the object of her 
devotion and bind her more firmly to him. 
A perverted pride made her glory in her de- 
fiance of the law for his safee, in his defiance 
of it for hers. All the misery of her mar- 
riage suddenly rolled like a burden from her 
:rushed heart, made it avid of long-denied 
oy, the long-repressed springs of passion 
welled abundantly forth at his touch. Not 
until Arthur’s first glow of passion had sub- 
sided did she begin to taste of shame. She 


102 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


drank it now to the bitter dregs of a never- 
emptied cup. 

She turned back to the beech beneath 
which he sat, trying to subdue the tempest 
within her, knowing all was lost, yet bitterly 
conscious that she must propitiate the 
source of Pansy’s bread. But she could 
not. 

You will go to her with a lie,” burst 
against her will from her quivering lips. 
“ Your marriage will be a lie and a shame and 
a curse. As you have acted to me, so will 
she act to you. As you desert me, so will 
she desert you.” 

The steel flash again came to his eyes, 
but he felt that he must bear with her. 
“ It’s bad enough 3nd bitter enough as it is,” 
he said; '‘don’t make it worse with hard 
words, Isabel. We sinned and we suffer. 
But let us part friends.” 

" Friends! Traitor, traitor! We sinned? 
Oh, yes, indeed we sinned both, but only I 
suffered, only I suffer! I always suffer! I do 
right and suffer — I do wrong and suffer. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


103 


Life has no mercy for me. I have lawful chil- 
dren and they are murdered in my arms. I 
have unlawful children and they die. A true 
wife, I was trampled, beaten, scorned, flung 
away. A true lover, I am deserted, wounded 
in heart, scorned, flung away. Arthur! oh, 
Arthur!” A tempest of sobs came to her 
relief, she sank upon the mossy bank, her 
face hidden again, her shame eating into 
her soul, her grief stifling her. 

Dear Isabel, you are indeed most unfor- 
tunate,” he forced himself to say without 
apparent anger, irritated though he was by 
her passion, and almost hating her for her 
pain. “ But try to be reasonable, try to 
make the best of it. I’ve been a brute, I 
know, and I’m sorry, but I can’t undo it. 
Come, let us be friends. This is a wrong 
that cannot be set right. It’s no use to rage 
against fate. I’ll do all I can for you. 
There’s Pansy coming. Don’t frighten her.” 

He caught up the child as she came 
bounding toward them, full of some wood 
treasure she had found, and tossed her high 


104 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


above his head, making her shout with min- 
gled terror and delight; then, glad of the 
opportunity, bore her from the spot and 
amused her till Isabel had composed herself, 
when he returned to the beech and set the 
child by her side. 

“ Me yikes him sometimes,” Pansy con- 
fided to her mother. ‘‘ But,” she added, 
after a thoughtful pause, with a sudden, de- 
fiant gaze, he didn’t born me.” 

When they reached the cottage gate a 
few minutes later, Arthur, looking at his 
watch, discovered that a train was to be 
caught by a quick walk across the fields, and 
left them with a hurried “ Good-bye, I’ll 
write,” before there was time to reply, leav- 
ing Isabel standing confounded by the un- 
expected and unceremonious leave-taking, 
gazing after the retreating figure with hor- 
ror - stricken eyes, desolate and deserted, 
dumb with despair and deaf to Pansy’s im- 
portunity. 

Ariadne might stand by the unpitying sea 
forever, and forever stretch out her arms to 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


lOS 


the vanishing ship, her voice might call 
across the calling waves forever in her deso- 
lation; but Theseus, his face set toward the 
ship’s course, would return no more forever. 

Presently the bells began to chime for 
evensong. She must have been standing by 
the gate an hour in her dazed, dumb despair, 
looking into the sunny void of the fields 
for the tall figure and handsome face she 
was to see again no more. The bell music 
fell like a voice from youth upon her suffer- 
ing heart, evoking bitter-sweet memories 
and melting the stony horror of pain and 
shame that possessed her. 

As it filled the golden evening with slow 
melody, visions swept by upon its waves of 
forgotten Sunday evenings when she had 
tripped along with her mother to church, a 
little child, prattling of angels and heaven; a 
slim girl, dreaming sweet dreams and joining 
heart and voice in psalm and hymn; a wed- 
ded wife, happy and honoured, her husband,' 
still a lover, by her side. Once more that 
first passion - thrilled “ Isabel,” in George’s 


io6 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


voice, sounded on her ear as on the bitter 
winter night five years ago. Then suddenly 
she became aware of George himself, with 
such vividness as startled her; George as she 
had seen him years ago, kneeling in Barton 
Church in a long evening sunbeam; George, 
no longer cursing and drink-mused, but calm 
and clear-minded, and praying, praying for 
her and Pansy. It was as if a hand reached 
down from a safe, serene shore into the wel- 
tering floods of grief and degradation that 
swept above her and tried to pluck her from 
destruction. 

A hand, warm and living, in reality did 
touch hers; the little girl, weary of playing 
alone so long, had come up to the white, 
statuesque mother, and grasped her hand. 
Looking down at the warm touch, Isabel met 
the wistful gaze of the deep, velvety eyes, 
and in the troubled little face discerned a 
look of George, whose daughter Pansy 
proclaimed herself both in colouring and fea- 
ture. Then she lifted the child in her arms 
and buried her weeping face in the little in- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


107 

nocent breast as she carried her into the 
cottage. 

Meanwhile Arthur, fleeing the cottage as 
Lot fled Sodom, felt that his troubles were 
all behind him and the worst moments in his 
life overlived. 

Arrived at his chambers, he sank into a 
deep chair with a lassitude as of physical ex- 
haustion, and remained immovable for some 
hours. Recovering from this, he spent the 
rest of the evening in certain business 
arrangements and a letter to Isabel, telling 
her that the cottage was hers for six months 
longer, till the lease expired, explaining that 
his marriage settlements were so exacting 
and the risk of exposure by checks and let- 
ters so great, that no future payments would 
be possible to him, except of a sum of a few 
hundred pounds, borrowed at high interest 
and paid in to her account at the local bank 
at once, with the balance of his own account 
there, in the name of Arthur Harris, trans- 
ferred to her, and giving her, should she be 

in any way pressed for money or in any other 
8 


io8 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


strait, a carefully guarded address, not to be 
lightly used. 

Isabel read it some days later with deep- 
er humiliation and more bitter pain than 
George’s most savage brutalities had ever 
inflicted on her. 

But when he had finished writing it 
Arthur Hedley was sufifused with a virtuous 
glow. He had recovered his self-esteem. 
What if in headlong youth he had sinned as 
so many men sin? He had repented and 
cast away his sin. He slept like a child that 
night in the joy of his great relief. But he 
gave no thought to the unhappy woman who 
loved him, and whom he had cast once more, 
as her brutal husband had done, defenceless 
and bleeding upon the world’s mercy. 


CHAPTER V 


THE HARVEST 

Ten years had passed since George 
Arnott’s sharp awakening and double loss. 
People had almost forgotten that he had 
ever been anything but the most steady and 
respectable of country practitioners. As a 
supposed widower he was freely remarried by 
local gossip, though hazy memories of trag- 
edy, associated with his solitary condition, 
sometimes woke to die an early death. His 
practice was a large and growing one, he 
enjoyed local renown as a remarkably skilful 
surgeon, and as a physician he was widely 
sought as a consulting physician in difficult 
cases. His practice must have been lucra- 
tive, yet he did not appear to be wealthy. 
People sometimes wondered how he spent 
his money. His stable was well filled, but for 


no 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


use, not show or pleasure; his household was 
unaltered; his life simple and frugal, and too 
busy for any but the simplest recreation. 

On a breezy hill a mile from the town a 
substantial Georgian house, with a walled 
garden, a paddock, and much pleasure 
ground, said to have some connection 
with the Upton Fathers, was used as a 
boarding house for invalids. It was called 
Hill House. The superintendent was for- 
mally its tenant and master ; the assist- 
ants, like the patients, were called board- 
ers, but it was really a home for inebri- 
ates. There, in his professional capacity, 
George Arnott spent much time. There, 
also, Philip Sternroyd was often found. 

But even George Arnott sometimes took 
holiday, notably in this golden autumn time, 
when a free week in the company of Father 
Sternroyd stretched pleasantly before him 
and promised much refreshment to body and 
mind. 

“ Let’s spend a couple of days at St. 
Egbert’s,” said Father Sternroyd in the 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


1 1 1 


course of a debate as to how they could lay 
out their free week to the best advantage. 

“ What and where is St. Egbert’s? ” 

Oh, don’t you know it’s one of Father 
Anstey’s dodges, connected with the Mission 
church at Portsmouth — a sort of slum 
menagerie, a combination of socialism and 
monkery. He and his curates live in the 
house, and everybody and anybody may go 
and live at free quarters with them. There 
they call no man common or unclean, nor do 
they call any man master. No one has any 
property, especially the owner’s; all is in 
common. All feed at one table; no exception. 
Your only credentials are to be a man; they 
can’t, of course, take in women, but they are 
trying to begin a small female house next 
door on the same lines, and to behave with 
common decency while in the house. If you 
swear or use foul language you are chucked 
out at once. Last time I dined there I sat 
between a bishop and a burglar; the bur- 
glar’s conversation was most interesting. 
You couldn’t, of course, expect much from a 


1 12 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


mere bishop, and he had the sense to know 
it. A young, first-class man fresh from Ox- 
ford was my vis-a-vis, on his right a man who 
had just done time for some sort of turf 
cheating and for sundry other little frail- 
ties, on his left a parson down on his luck 
and just bankrupt in a knife-grinding ven- 
ture — we sent round the hat to start him 
with a fresh machine. There was a belted 
earl somewhere about, but he called himself 
Jones or Robinson; and any number of 
born and bred tramps. That’s the kind of 
show.” 

“ But isn’t it a premium on idleness? ” 

“ No; they’ve a registry business to get 
work for people, and it is understood that no 
one stays longer than just to get a rest and 
look out for work. And some of them pretty 
badly want a rest and a few free meals. One 
poor lad burst out crying when a plate of 
roast mutton was put before him. The smell 
of it alone made him tipsy, he hadn’t seen 
such a thing for so long. Father Anstey gets 
them to open their hearts to him, and cheer- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 113 

fully consents to be taken in now and again. 
He says it’s in the bill. Most interesting 
place — Portsmouth. It has a special brand 
of slum that beats the record.” 

So George spent his first leisure day at 
St. Egbert’s, going to Father Anstey’s beau- 
tiful new church, with its mosaics and fresh 
flowers, elaborate ritual, and free-seated con- 
gregation of slum people and reclaimed crim- 
inals — a church built by free contributions 
and maintained chiefly by the voluntary alms 
of the poor. 

In the evening the two friends went to a 
cheerful dance of slum folk, male and female. 
Father Anstey was host and a female relative 
hostess; it was whispered that only regular 
communicants were invited to these balls, 
the pride of the Father’s heart. The dancing 
was vigorous but correct, the steps were 
carefully and conscientiously executed, for- 
malities strictly observed, the enjoyment was 
undoubted. But in their goings and com- 
ings at St. Egbert’s by day and by night 
sadder things were seen . and heard, and 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


1 14 

George had melancholy opportunities of cor- 
roborating Father Sternroyd’s tribute to the 
speciality of that slum’s brand. 

On the second evening they were sitting 
at supper in the cheerfully promiscuous man- 
ner indicated by Father Sternroyd, when the 
discordant mingling of hoarse and shrill 
voices, raucous yells, piercing shrieks, foul 
language, and trampling feet, that go to make 
a drunken row, was heard outside St. Eg- 
bert’s house, increasing in volume and inten- 
sity as it surged slowly by and then dying 
down like a spent fire. 

Some one drew aside a blind to see if the 
police should be called, and, reassured by the 
gleam of a policeman’s helmet, and the quick, 
steady tramp of an approaching picket, re- 
turned to the table without further comment 
and resumed the dropped thread of conver- 
sation. Sounds as of a tipsy soldier protest- 
ing against the too-well-known frog’s march 
that the picket was helping him to perform 
soon followed. Some policemen in charge 
of an intoxicated sailor were heard moving 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


II5 

off in another direction, not without a baf- 
fled attempt at rescue by the crowd, and then 
St. Egbert’s cook entered by the communi- 
cating door from the neighbouring house and 
appeared at the dining-hall door, to ask if a 
doctor were among the company, as a wom- 
an injured in the row had been taken in and 
was like to die. 

George Arnott at once stood up to go. 
He would have been followed by Sternroyd 
but that Father Anstey bid the latter remain 
at table, as it was what he called '' his show ” 
this time, the injured woman being his guest 
for the time. 

“ A very common incident, probably,” 
George commented, while he followed the 
good Father through the corridors and up to 
the locked door of communication, of which 
he had the pass-key. 

'' Very common, but we don’t often come 
into the rows. My sister’s idea is to watch 
them, and, when possible, aid the wounded, 
rather than leave them to the police, who 
have to be rough sometimes; for women 


Il6 THE WORLD’S MERCY 

fight like tigers when they do fight. I’d 
rather face ten men any day.” 

They went down to the ground floor of 
the women’s house and were admitted to a 
bare, whitewashed room adjoining the street 
door. There, in the glaring gaslight, they 
saw the form of a woman of the uncertain 
age of the street haunter, in mean and 
shabby clothing, all bespattered with mud 
and blood, stretched senseless upon the lino- 
leum-covered floor, her head supported and 
slightly shadowed by a black-garbed Sister. 
The stertorous breathing and heavy odour 
of spirits in the air made it unnecessary 
for another Sister, coming in with a bowl 
of water and towels, to utter the explana- 
tory words, ‘‘ drunk, of course.” A po- 
liceman was present ; one or two women 
of the lowest class, St. Egbert’s guests, 
stood by. 

She sells flowers,” one of these was say- 
ing. “ She got a month’s hard in the sum- 
mer.” 

“ There lies your and my sister, Arnott,” 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


117 

said Father Anstey, unconsciously plagiariz- 
ing Gordon. “ Badly hurt, I’m afraid.” 

George had adjusted a gas jet to throw 
its glare full upon the stained, unconscious 
face, and was kneeling by the prostrate fig- 
ure that he was observing with the intent, 
unimpassioned scrutiny of his profession, 
when he suddenly started back, quivering, 
and sprang to his feet. 

“ There lies my wife, Isabel Arnott,” he 
cried in a clear and very distinct voice; 
brought there by my sin.” 

Silence for some seconds: Father An- 
stey’s face quivered sympathetically; it was 
a broad, jovial face, and accustomed to 
mark feeling. The unmoved policeman 
noted down the name with stolid precision, 
the women looked at one another. Strong 
emotions and powerful incidents were too 
common at St. Egbert’s to be overexciting, 
and these women were tired out. Besides, 
respectability was one of the few vices for- 
eign to St. Egbert. Very soon, with a deep 
sigh, almost a groan, George pulled himself 


Il8 THE WORLD’S MERCY 

together, knelt again by the unconscious 
form, and continued his diagnosis: spong- 
ing and bandaging, testing the pulse and 
breath, raising the closed eyelids to exam- 
ine the pupils of the eyes, and giving direc- 
tions to the Sister in charge, with the calm 
and self-possession of professional habit. 

“ What injuries? ” Father Anstey asked 
presently, in an unsteady voice. He was 
told that there was concussion of the brain 
from a heavy blow and several contused 
wounds, perhaps from a belt, perhaps from 
a fall against the curbstone. 

The thirty-eight years numbered by this 
poor victim of the sins of others might have 
been fifty-eight, to judge by the haggard, 
lined face and “ woe-withered gold ” of the 
still abundant but gray and ragged hair. 
Her tall and well-built figure was gaunt and 
emaciated; she bore signs that told her hus- 
band a tale of famine, want, and hardship of 
long standing. It was not easy to recognise, 
in the disguise of her squalid clothing, bleed- 
ing face, and wasted body, the beautiful fea- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


II9 

tures and supple and commanding form of 
the indignant young mother whom he had 
turned into the street, with her dying baby, 
that bitter night ten years ago. He had 
thrust her out defenceless by night into the 
open street at the world’s mercy. In the 
open street by night, defenceless, with the 
marks of the world’s mercy upon her, he 
found her, and recognised the fruit of his 
own transgression. 

In the long hours during which he 
watched the unconscious face of the woman 
who had been the wife of his manhood and 
the dream and glory of his youth he had 
ample field for speculation on the steps by 
which she had descended to this hell of 
misery and degradation. The wounded face, 
with unseeing eyes and blank features, was 
like a dreadful, impenetrable mask, behind 
which lurked untold tragedy and horror. 
His hair whitened, his features sharpened, 
his heart withered in the fiery pain as days 
went by, the soiled and shamed life trembled 
in the balance, and the lips that could have 


120 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


revealed so much remained dumb. Some- 
times it seemed as if the ghastly, bandaged 
face on the pillow were a grotesque mockery 
of the beautiful woman whose love and life 
had been given to him, so unlike it was in its 
likeness, so terrible in its suggestion of what 
it had seen and known since he cast it away. 
The squalor of rags and dirt having been re- 
moved, the tragedy became more apparent. 
The phantom-like form, stretched motionless 
as death, or aimlessly, restlessly turning, re- 
proached and accused him as his dead baby 
had done years ago, and the unmeaning ges- 
tures became full of terrible significance to 
his troubled mind. 

“ Go away, George. Go away into the 
fresh air and think of something else before 
you go mad,” Sternroyd, who did not leave 
him long at this period, said one day, after 
much attempted consolation and much 
prayer with and for him. 

“ I think I am mad. I know I shall be 
if she dies like this,” he gasped. “ Oh, yes! 
I know it is just — for me, but for her? ” 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


I2I 


“ You shall not go mad, and she will not 
die like this,” Sternroyd replied with the 
calm certainty that gave him such power. 
“ Have faith. His wrath endureth but the 
twinkling of an eye. His mercy endureth 
forever! Think of the strange links of ap- 
parent chance and real purpose by which you 
have been brought together again. Keep 
sane, dear lad! You can do her no good by 
staying; she is well cared for. Go and pray 
with the people in church. Go out and re- 
fresh your mind and body. You will be told 
of the first change.” 

Parts of the sad story came out in these 
days: that she had gained a precarious liveli- 
hood by selling flowers, and sometimes fruit, 
about the streets; that she had been drink- 
ing at the bar of the house outside which the 
tipsy brawl took place; that she had been 
twice in jail, once for some petty larceny 
when destitute, once for wandering without 
visible means of subsistence; that she had no 
home and no friends, but often passed her 
nights at a common though fairly reputable 


122 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


lodging house; that she was quiet and well- 
behaved, very rarely in drink; that she was 
known as Belle Harris, sometimes “ Lady 
Harris,” and was supposed to be a widow. 
This from the police and the women shelter- 
ing at St. Egbert’s House. Neither Father 
Anstey nor his assistants knew her, though 
they had seen her offering flowers for sale. 

“ It’s jolly easy,” the Father remarked 
upon this, “ to slide into the criminal class 
once you’re destitute, especially if you’re a 
woman.” 

Later George heard the complete outline 
of that ten years’ history: Of her early de- 
pendence on the charity of Arthur Hedley, 
who, during the first prostration of her grief 
and illness, had sheltered and disguised her 
as his brother; of her strong motive to live 
for the unborn child’s sake, and her great fear 
lest that child should fall into its father’s 
hands; of gratitude on one side and pity on 
the other, growing imperceptibly into love 
between Isabella and the man who rescued 
her; of the sad, inevitable sequence of such 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


123 


a union; of the bitter struggle, after its 
breaking, to make a living alone, unfriended 
and burdened with the care and maintenance 
of a young child; of her applying at last to 
Hedley for help, and his anger and threat to 
reveal the child’s existence to the father; of 
the impossibility of applying to her own rela- 
tives for the same reason; of the descent 
from depth to depth in the mad struggle to 
support self and child, and the child being at 
last in the shelter of a cottage home, where a 
small payment was made — for Pansy had, in 
spite of all, never seen the inside of a work- 
house — lastly of the temptation to theft and 
its detection and punishment. The drink 
had never been much, but taken as a refuge 
from despair, and to stay the pangs of hun- 
ger, its effect had been the more excessive. 

When Isabel at last opened conscious 
eyes, the pressure being removed from her 
stricken brain, the first thing they saw was 
the face of her husband; not the savage, be- 
sotted face of later years, dull-eyed, bloated, 
and abhorred, but one which, in spite of the 
9 


124 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


added ten years, was as that of the husband of 
her youth. Yet there was a beauty in this 
face and a light in the eyes far beyond that 
of the young George. The countenance was 
purified and softened by those ten years of 
fiery sorrow and penitence; spiritual ardour 
was in the burning gaze, there was more in- 
tellect in the always strong brow, more self- 
control and calm in the square jaw and full 
but firm mouth, the thinned, grizzled hair 
suggested refinement rather than age, the 
spare, strong figure was lithe and active as 
well as dignified. Something of her own lost 
beauty had returned to her marble - white 
face, in the fine lines and sweet expression of 
youth in which George felt that his lost wife 
had been given back to him, purified and 
healed. Isabel smiled up with a child’s 
trustfulness into the deep, sad eyes, and then 
her pale lips moved. 

“ George,” she said in a faint voice, with a 
note of glad recognition, “ dear George. It 
was a bad dream,” she added later; “ but it 
is gone,” and so slept. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


125 

But this burdened soul lingered several 
days yet, to depart in peace at last. 

“ Dear George, I have sinned and suf- 
fered too much,” she said on the last day, in 
reply to passionate avowals of love and re- 
morse and desire that she should live. “ I 
have fallen too far to rise again in this life.” 
And through all his unutterable longing he 
knew that her words were true. 

And when Sternroyd, rising from prayer 
to close the eyes at the last, said, “ Let us 
give thanks,” he gave thanks from his deep- 
est heart. 

A few hours later, on that solemn day, 
Sternroyd led him apart to a room used for 
private interviews at St. Egbert’s. George 
followed listlessly, so dazed and exhausted 
by the emotions of the last few hours that 
he was hardly conscious of what was around 
him. Sternroyd having brought him in, went 
out and shut the door. 

The room was bare and clean and dim, 
containing a few chairs and a table. On the 
wall opposite the door was a large wooden 


126 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


crucifix, beneath which a slim, pale child of 
nine or ten, poorly but neatly clad, stood 
waiting, half forlorn, half defiant, with great 
dark, wistful eyes, restlessly searching and 
watching, like a wild, trapped animars. 

George looked with sudden interest at 
the child and she at him for a few seconds; 
then her face cleared and she stepped forward 
with a shy smile and uplifted face and hands. 
‘‘ Fm Pansy,” she said in a tremulous, sad 
little voice that went to his heart and un- 
sealed its deepest fountain of love and tears. 
Then, with a sob of unspeakable thankful- 
ness, he took the little lonely thing in his 
arms and kissed and blessed her. And in the 
deep peace that fell upon him he knew that 
his penitence was accepted and her pardon 
sure. So he tasted the sweetness of God’s 
mercy, which is not as the world’s mercy. 


SWEET REVENGE 


Though ruined, Carlen Castle sat proud- 
ly upon its steep acclivity, its dismantled and 
crumbling keep on the seaward summit, its 
fine, towered gateway facing landward with 
stately defiance, and looking up a long 
valley between chalk hills. It made a good 
point of view from Carlen House, a modern 
white mansion on the opposite hill slope, half 
hidden by thick beech woods that, screened 
by each hill from the salt sea winds, climbed 
both hills, the slopes of which, meeting in a 
broad V, allowed a glimpse of sea from the 
level highroad running through the village 
at the foot of the castled hill. 

These ruins were among the show places 

* Copyright, 1896, by M. G. Tuttiett. 

127 


128 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


of the country, and the object of many ex- 
cursions and picnics all the year long; but 
chiefly in the autumn season, when Carlen 
folk gathered a double harvest — one from 
the fields and another from visitors, whose 
four-horse coaches, wagonettes, and chars-a- 
banc clustered thickly outside the Carlen 
Arms and the Castle Inn, in company with 
innumerable bicycles, the riders of which 
found it easier to climb the precipitous 
wooded road to the castle gate without 
wheels. Though of steep ascent it was a fair 
road, screened by beech and ash, offering 
lovely prospects, and passing at its termina- 
tion on arches over a dry moat. A groove 
for a portcullis showed what once had been, 
and loopholes in each beautifully rounded 
turret by the vaulted entrance recalled days 
when the bows of English yeomen were 
feared by the world. 

Inside the heavy oaken gate spread level 
greensward, closely shane and shaded by 
trees; near the gateway stood a stone cot- 
tage with mullioned windows, amid much 


SWEET REVENGE 


129 


greenery and bloom in a plot of garden 
ground. Here lived the old gatekeeper and 
his wife. 

Another garden, free of the shadow of the 
towers, lay beneath the broken wall opposite 
the castellan’s cottage. It was inclosed by 
wire fencing, and led to a small modern Tu- 
dor house, built into the ruins out of old and 
weathered stone. Straight down the middle 
of this garden ran a broad turf walk bordered 
with old-fashioned flowers — lavender, stocks, 
and carnations — behind which were espalier 
fruit trees, making a light fencing for vege- 
tables beyond. The slim figures of two 
young women, in straw sailor hats, cotton 
blouses, and dark plain skirts, moved over the 
sunny turf among the flowers. One girl was 
sweeping the fine, short grass, newly mown, 
with a heath broom, the other was tying 
carnations; their voices sounded high and 
clear as they moved and talked. 

“ Gerald has shown me his hand, Mar- 
gie,” said the girl with the broom. Oh, 
these men with their transparent schemes! 


130 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


How they plume themselves on the subtilty 
of their little wiles and lures! ’’ 

“ And what is his little game? ” asked 
Margie, who was kneeling by the carnations 
now just bursting into spicy pink and crim- 
son bloom. 

“ The usual refuge of the destitute, child 
— to marry money.” 

'‘Gerald!” cried Margery. “Why, he’s 
going to marry me — at least so people say.” 

“ Not Gerald, goosey. His friend, this 
precious young Carr, this lovely blend of 
Apollo and Adonis, with a spice of Bayard 
thrown in.” 

“ Dear Rosalind, it’s no use to fight 
against Fate and suitors. Marry one and 
you’ll be rid of the rest. Have him.” 

“ To spite the others? No, Margie; my 
only chance is to disguise myself in poverty, 
and go a-hunting for a disinterested husband. 
Have him yourself, and leave Gerald to me. 
He’d be a world the better for a good heart- 
break. Gerald couldn’t marry me, you see. 
He thinks cousins’ marriages wicked. So 


SWEET REVENGE 


I3I 

do I — but that’s neither here nor there. By 
the way, when is this charming youth to 
arrive — to-night or to-morrow? ” 

“ He dines with us to-night, and he 
couldn’t unless he had arrived, could he? ” 

“ No, but his astral body might. I’ll be 
as hideous as I can, at all events — wear that 
green gown. I wonder what Fraser will do 
when he finds I have mown and swept his 
grass.” 

‘‘He will probably swear.” 

Presently Rosalind left the inclosed gar- 
den and leant on her broom, whistling softly, 
as if lost in thought, while Margery sat on 
a bit of broken wall hard by, arranging a 
bunch of carnations, tying them with a piece 
of bast that hung round her neck, and sing- 
ing in a soft undertone. Her skirt was 
tucked up on one side and soiled with garden 
mould, her fair hair was ruffled. Rosalind’s 
darker hair had become loosened with exer- 
cise, and her fringe pushed off her forehead 
under her hat — a hat once white, but now 
browned by sun and rain. Both girls were 


32 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


looking at the heavy oaken gates fitted in 
the stone archway and barred and crossed 
with oaken beams, when the large bell, hang- 
ing inside by the lintel, swung to and fro 
with loud clangour. 

‘‘ Poor Grannie! She was up all night 
with the child, and she’s sound asleep now. 
And Elias gone to cut grass ” 

‘‘ I’ll open the gate; Grannie shan’t be 
waked!” cried Margery, springing to her 
feet, and going with the bast still over her 
shoulders to the gate. “ These ’Arries ring 
loud enough to wake the dead.” 

She unhasped and opened a wicket in the 
gate, disclosing in the shadow of the vaulted 
gateway two men, one with a cigarette in his 
mouth. 

'' Can we see the castle? ” he asked in a 
well-toned voice, removing the cigarette to 
speak and then replacing it. 

“ Certainly,” she replied. “ Step in.” 

The young man stepped in, followed by 
another, also young. Margery closed the 
wicket behind them, and resumed her seat 


SWEET REVENGE 


133 

and her occupation, while the two men stood 
just inside and looked round them. 

In the foreground was Rosalind, leaning 
pensively on her broom; behind her were the 
broken walls of graystone, the little modern 
Tudor house, through an open window of 
which the remains of a luncheon could be 
seen, with the distant keep for a background. 
Full sunshine threw her face into shadow and 
lit up the faces of the two men. 

The first man was tall and dark, with a 
beautiful, close-shaven fate; he wore a soft 
felt hat with a pinched crown and slightly 
sweeping brim, the belted tunic called a Nor- 
folk jacket, and knickerbockers of thinner, 
more clinging stuff than is usual. Slightly 
and straightly built, and wearing stockings 
that disclosed the real shape of the leg, instead 
of exaggerating the thickness characteristic 
of English limbs, he made a graceful and, by 
contrast with others, even picturesque figure. 
Flis movements were graceful; there was a 
suggestion of knightly charm in his look and 
bearing. His friend was of sturdier build. 


134 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


with gray eyes and light-brown hair; he 
was an inch or two shorter than his comrade, 
still not short. He was less picturesquely 
dressed, brown-faced and bearded. 

“ Not ’Arries,” Rosalind reflected, as she 
scanned them with a careless glance, her chin 
resting on the earth-stained hands clasped 
above her broomstick. 

The dark man sent a quick, sweeping 
glance over the whole picture, scarcely notic- 
ing the figure in the foreground, but particu- 
larly observing the* small house built of old 
stones. 

'‘Jove! what an owl’s nest!” he ex- 
claimed, with a dissatisfied air. 

“ What would you have? ” his friend re- 
replied. " Romantic old place — fine ruins, 
surely.” 

“ One doesn’t sell one’s soul for an owl’s 
nest or a heap of ruins,” rejoined the first 
speaker, whose clear voice was rather high. 

" Oh, souls are cheap enough once in 
the market,” the deeper voice replied. 
“ Let’s rest and be thankful,” he added, 


SWEET REVENGE 


35 


dropping on a garden seat and stretching his 
legs comfortably in front of him, with his 
hands in his pockets. “ Jolly old place, 
Carr. Very good specimen of a feudal 
stronghold. Norman keep well preserved. 
Carlen House on the hill opposite. Perpen- 
dicular chapel yonder,” nodding his head 
slightly to the right, where, opposite the 
dwelling house, a perfect and richly traceried 
window in a roofless chancel was partially re- 
vealed between some beeches. 

Rosalind had moved away when the bell 
again sounded, and she hastened to the gate 
to let in a party of ladies, while Margery said 
that she would go quietly into the cottage 
and put the kettle on for Grannie’s tea, in 
case she waked and wanted it. 

“ Dear old Grannie is still asleep; I hope 
no one will rouse her,” she said, coming out 
of the cottage five minutes later and address- 
ing Rosalind, who was answering questions, 
and giving the dates and builders of different 
parts of the castle to the inquisitive men 
visitors. 


36 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


The present owner is not a De Carlen, I 
think? ” the dark man asked, forgetting, de- 
spite his knightly appearance, to remove his 
cigarette while speaking. 

To which Rosalind, finding herself unable 
to understand the query until it had been re- 
peated twice, the last time without the ciga- 
rette, at length replied: “ No, an Ormonde. 
The male line has twice been broken. Here 
lies the last De Carlen ” — pointing out a small 
chantry in the ruined chapel, which was 
grass-grown and dotted with stone tombs 
and broken effigies of mailed knights. 

‘‘ Very good of the owner to open her 
ruins to the public,” Carr said. “ It must be 
a bore to her. This Miss Ormonde courts 
popularity, eh? ” 

“ Miss Ormonde is not too poor to be 
popular,” was Rosalind’s somewhat dark 
reply. 

“ Rustic irony,” Carr murmured to his 
friend. 

“ A plain woman? ” he asked of Rosa- 


lind. 


SWEET REVENGE 


137 


“ Certainly a plain woman.” 

“And with such a temper!” added Mar- 
gery with emphasis. 

“ But young, surely young? ” he pro- 
tested, as if her age were a personal injury to 
him. 

“ Well, not so young as she was, poor 
lady!” 

“ Still, she must be under fifty,” added 
Margery in a deprecating tone. 

“ Ha! What did I tell you, Brandon? 
A frumpish, cross old maid. No one ever 
good enough to marry her, I suppose? ” to 
Rosalind. 

“ Those who ask heiresses seldom are 
good enough to marry them.” 

Carr laughed a joyous, boy’s laugh. 
“ Wise women still exist, Brandon,” he said, 
“ and witches, too,” he added, with a side 
glance at Margery. 

“ This little thirteenth-century window is 
much admired,” Rosalind said abruptly, lift- 
ing some ivy that concealed it. 

“ You two are attached to the place? ” 


38 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


asked Brandon, with the respectful air so 
decidedly absent from his friend’s bearing. 

Have lived here long? You don’t tire of 
showing it?” 

“ I am attached to it — like a tree or a serf 
of oldtime. I never tire of showing it to 
people who are interested in it,” she replied, 
smiling. 

“ As for me, I am quite in love with the 
place,” Brandon sighed, with a keen, quick 
glance at the bright and intelligent face of 
the guide. I could be very, very happy in 
that little house, Carr,” he added. 

“ My good chap, you could be happy 
anywhere with a pen' and a pipe. I’ll be 
bound you’re hatching a sonnet this moment 
— savage because you can’t rhyme stone. 

“ ‘ Would I could bone 

The whole of the stone ’ ” 

“ And the mistress ? ” 

“ Condone. There’s the rub, don’t you 
know. We’ll take the sea view and the tilt- 
yard for granted this broiling day,” he added, 
in an insolent drawl to Rosalind as he turned 


SWEET REVENGE 


139 


back to Brandon, who was choosing" some 
photographs set out on a little table beneath 
the cottage window. “ I can’t afford to 
spoil my complexion or overtire myself to- 
day. The dragon must be faced this even- 
ing and the siege begun at once.” 

“ What if you do spoil your lovely mug? 
Easily powder for the evening,” suggested 
Brandon, “ and put on a fresh pair of stays 
to support your willowy waist.” 

Too much fag, old Timon. ‘ Oh! for a 
beaker full of the warm South; full of the 
true, the blushful Hip ’ ” 

“ Or some ginger pop,” suggested Mar- 
gery, laying her slender forefinger on a stone 
bottle on the table, while Rosalind packed 
Brandon’s views in an envelope and counted 
out his change. 

“ With a kiss thrown in? ” whispered . 
Carr, as, with a sudden deft movement, he 1 
threw his arm round Margery and brought 
his face close to hers just in time to receive 
such a well-intentioned, single-hearted box 

on the ear as made the archway echo, startled 
10 


140 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


the owls and bats, sent a cloud of pigeons 
scurrying up on the ruined walls, and con- 
vulsed Brandon and Rosalind between laugh- 
ter and indignation, but did not wake Gran- 
nie — or, at least, only enough to season her 
nap with conscious enjoyment and an agree- 
able reflection that her work was being ad- 
mirably done for her. 

Margery’s pretty, merry face was white 
and angry as she moved haughtily away. 
Carr, very red, with three white stripes on his 
cheek, was the first of the four to recover 
composure; he moved off with a muttered 
apology, and a feeble jest about striking 
arguments, and, seating himself in the shad- 
ow of the broken wall, where a room had 
once been, began to smoke fiercely at a cigar. 

“ Hard hit for once, my good Wilfrid,” 
Brandon said, joining him after composedly 
finishing his purchases. Jolly little girl. 
Straightforward. No nonsense about her. 

Hits out as if she meant it ” 

“ Damn! ” was the brief reply. 
‘‘Wretch!” Margery sobbed, under the 


SWEET REVENGE 


I41 

shadow of a cedar that reached from the 
ruined upper room whither she had fled 
to the wall under which the two men were 

smoking. “ Nasty, horrid ” 

“ Nonsense, child,” interrupted Rosalind. 
‘‘ After all, perhaps it served us right for let- 
ting them think us ” 

“ Us, indeed! Nobody kissed you! ” 

Or you, either. Come, come,” con- 
tinued Rosalind, drawing her cousin gently 
along the narrow path on the first story of 
the ruin to a deep-recessed ogee window in 
the cool thickness of the wall, where they 
could sit comfortably. “ You had the best 
of it, Margie. I don't think he’ll want any 
more ginger pop just yet, do you? Oh, 
hush, look! ” 

Both peeped through the unglazed win- 
dow, which was partially hidden by cedar 
boughs, and saw, immediately beneath them, 
the subjects of their conversation. Carr, the 
white marks still on his flushed cheek, had 
thrown his hat on the turf before him, and 
was speaking with unusual energy. 


142 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


If good looks were virtues, he’d soon 
deserve Paradise,” whispered Rosalind. 

“ Oh, 'Miss Dragon! he’d have got no 
ginger pop from you,” murmured Margery, 
laughing, with the tears still on her peach- 
like cheeks and in her merry eyes. 

“ I don’t care,” Carr was saying emphati- 
cally, “ I must have her or I shall be stone 
broke.” 

“ What 1 Marry a spiteful, frumpish ^old 
maid for the sake of an owl’s nest and a heap 
of ruins? ” asked Brandon. 

“And half the county and Heaven knows 
what besides. It’s positively sinful for all 
that fine property to be thrown away on a 
woman. It ought not to be allowed in any 
Christian country.” 

“ Well, but what would stone-broke 
youths do with no heiresses to marry? ” 

“ Positively sinful,” he repeated, with 
pious energy. “ And here am . I, with at 
least two thirds of my rents unpaid, and all 
kinds of burdens on the estates, and the 
mater’s jointure, and her house, and the girls’ 


SWEET REVENGE 


143 


portions, not to speak of their keep, and 
mortgages here and there and everywhere, 
and a run of ill-luck at Monte Carlo last 
March, and losing heavily on Glendower, and 
that beast Stone letting Young Lochinvar be 
got at, besides — one must have one’s fling 
now and then; one can’t always live like an 
anchorite ” 

Did you ever — ” drawled Brandon 
slowly — “ ah — try? ” 

“ I can’t understand the principles on 
which this brute of a world is governed,” 
complained Carr pathetically. “ Here is 
this — damn! what’s this creeping inside my 
collar? ” he cried, putting up his hand to 
feel — “little stones. Here is this — ah! — this 
— old crone.” 

“ Unmarried woman, positively rolling in 
riches. Dover says she has a whole coal 
mine to herself.” 

“ To roll in? ” 

“And here am I — oh! I’ll make the 
plunge — I’m blest if I won’t — though she’s 
as ugly as sin, as old as Methuselah, as stupid 


144 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


as an owl, as ill-tempered as a sick bear, and 
as wicked as the devil; I will have her, I say. 
Confound it,” he cried, putting up his hand 
to his collar again, “ what the devil can 
this be? ” 

The family ghost protesting,” ex- 
plained Brandon, with a delighted grin, as 
his eye followed a thin stream of mortar from 
inside Carr’s collar to its source in a slender 
hand vanishing inside the window. “ But 
suppose she won’t have you? She must be a 
dab at refusing by this time if she’s hard 
upon fifty.” 

“ She’s a woman,” Sir Wilfrid returned, 
with a singular smile. “ Oh, hang this 
dust! ” he added, shifting his position. “ It’s 
all over the place. She should keep it in 
better repair. She’s a woman, Arthur.” 

Most heiresses are; still — they sometimes 
refuse.” 

“ They refuse some men. My good Bran- 
don, want a woman, and have a woman; 
that’s my experience. Confound it all, the 
whole blessed place is coming down! ” he 


SWEET REVENGE 


145 


cried, jumping up under a shower of stone 
chips and dust, and turning with bepowdered 
hair to look up at the window, where no 
living thing could be seen. “ Let us cut 
this. The horses will be at the foot of 
the hill.” 

Long, level rays of a setting sun were 
filling one of a suite of drawing-rooms open- 
ing into each other at Carlen House when 
Rosalind entered it that evening. She 
looked at the western glory, looked away, 
and went into another — a south-facing room 
— where she saw herself in a full-length mir- 
ror, with the reddening radiance streaming 
past and touching her pearl-white satin 
skirts. ' As ugly as sin, as ill-tempered as a 
sick bear ’ — was that it, Margie? ” 

Margery, very charming in white lace 
over blue, laughed joyously. The first guest 
was announced, then another, and another. 
Two men, whose names did not reach the 
hostess, were joined and received at the door 
by Gerald Dover and led up to her. 

“ At last, Rosalind,” her cousin said, pre- 


146 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


senting him — “ here, at last, is my old friend, 
Sir Wilfrid Carr.” 

Sir Wilfrid’s gaze, which had vainly 
sought the plain, old-maidish frump he ex- 
pected, was a little dazzled by the sunset 
light from the room behind his hostess, who 
expressed cordial pleasure at making the ac- 
quaintance of her cousin’s friend, already well 
known to her by report, in a voice that made 
him look up in her face with a start and a 
suppressed ejaculation. 

His astonished eyes saw no faded, dowd- 
ily dressed lady of an uncertain age, but just 
a slim, graceful figure in shining satin draper- 
ies, with gleaming arms and fair white neck, 
bemocking the unusually fine pearls upon it. 
Then he became aware of kind brown eyes, 
dark hair curling low on a broad, open brow, 
a firm mouth with little humorous dimples at 
the corners, and a genial yet rather patroniz- 
ing air. It was a young, fresh-faced, and at- 
tractive woman, whose subtile smile of wel- 
come so strangely perturbed him; and yet 
this lofty being was like — cold chills ran over 


SWEET REVENGE 


147 


him at the thought — she was very like the 
girl with the broom, the old hat, and the 
tucked-up skirts and sleeves who showed the 
ruins. And alas! innocently smiling at her 
side, in blue and white, was that very pretty, 
fair-haired girl who had given him such a 
hearty box on the ear an hour or two since. 

“ Plain — with such a temper — frumpish — 
not yet fifty — not too poor to be popular — 
the dragon to be faced! Good Lord! Pve 
done it , this time, and no mistake,” he 
thought, trying to remember how much 
Miss Ormonde could have overheard. ‘‘ A 
nasty trick to play on a man.” 

For a moment, realizing that the game 
was lost, he was completely taken aback and 
utterly routed; but by the time Brandon had 
been presented to Miss Ormonde and his 
confused self made known to Miss Margery 
Staines, he was, as he expressed it, all there 
again, and so cool and apparently uncon- 
scious of what had gone before as almost to 
persuade Rosalind, when she found herself 
following her guests in to dinner on this ami- 


48 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


ably chatting person’s arm, that he and the 
picturesque youth of the cigarette were dif- 
ferent people. 

Carlen Castle, unlike Sir Wilfrid, was 
blushing beautifully in the sunset upon the 
hill, within sight of the windows of the large, 
cool hall in which they were dining. Mr. 
Brandon, who had taken Margery in, com- 
mented upon its beauty to her. 

‘‘Isn’t it a dear old owl’s nest?” Miss 
Ormonde struck in, with a sweet smile. “We 
are awfully fond of our heap of ruins, are we 
not, Margie? ” 

“ And the ghost. I often envy you your 
family ghost,” Margery replied with infan- 
tile simplicity. “ I never had so much 
as a grandfather, much less a ghost, to 
boast of.” 

“ Ah! — do you like this hot weather. Miss 
Ormonde ? ” the wretched Carr inquired, 
with tender solicitude. 

“ Not much; it’s so unbecoming. It 
turns one brown, and — makes one as ugly as 


SWEET REVENGE 


149 


Really? But sunburn becomes some 
people,” he insinuated with great sweet- 
ness. 

'' The sun always turns me red,” Margery 
kindly explained. “ Then my head aches, 
and makes me as stupid as an owl.” 

Have you some iced seltzer? ” he mur- 
mured to a servant at the moment. ‘‘ Noth- 
ing so refreshing as iced seltzer,” he unneces- 
sarily informed his hostess. 

“ Did you ever try ginger pop, Sir Wil- 
frid? There’s nothing so cooling as ginger 
pop, of a hot afternoon. We have it at the 
Castle sometimes, Margie and I. Only a 
penny a bottle. It is gratifying to one’s 
avarice, even though one may not be too 
poor to be popular.” 

“ Are you much at the Castle, Miss Or- 
monde? ” Brandon inquired, with the pleas- 
ant air of one introducing a fresh and charm- 
ing topic. 

'' It depends. Sometimes Margie and I 
go there for luncheon, especially when things 
go wrong, and it’s either too hot or too cold. 


150 


THE WORLD’S MERCY. 


and one feels as ill-tempered as — as a sick 
bear.” 

Surely, Miss Ormonde, that can never 
be,” objected the polite Sir Wilfrid. 

“ Then it’s such a soothing, tranquilliz- 
ing place to dream in, to discuss one’s affairs 
and curse one’s luck, and lay schemes in,” 
continued the pitiless Rosalind. Perhaps 
you know it, Mr. Brandon? ” 

“ I think I have some vague memories of 
the place. Miss Ormonde. How good of 
you to let people see it! I hope your kind- 
ness is never abused. No doubt ’Arries 
often come there.” 

“ Oh, yes; and Reggies and Johnnies, and 
all sorts and conditions of people. There’s an 
’Arry season and a Reggie season. We have 
some lovely specimens there sometimes.” 

The beautiful and charming Sir Wilfrid, 
pensively smiling, as one whose mind is ab- 
sorbed by ethereal subjects, here descended 
from some summit of lofty speculation, and 
asked for opinions on Irving’s latest Shake- 
spearian impersonation. 


SWEET REVENGE 


I51 

“ I can’t endure Irving in young charac- 
ters,” Rosalind observed; Hamlet and 
Romeo make him look as old as Methu- 
selah.” 

“ And Ellen Terry is scarcely so young as 
she was,” Brandon gently hinted. 

Still she must be under fifty,” Rosalind 
as gently corrected. “ But what is that to a 
genius? ” 

“Do you — ah — do you like Ibsen?” 
asked the unfortunate Carr, addressing Mar- 
gery. 

“ I don’t know. I mayn’t know without 
asking my mamma,” she replied. “ People’s 
mammas don’t seem to admire him much.” 

“ It is quite possible to object to problem 
plays and Ibsenism without being an abso- 
lute dragon of propriety,” Rosalind corrob- 
orated, with severity; “ and Miss Staines is 
still young and tender, like Little Billee. A 
shipwrecked crew might eat her — she’s so 
good.” 

“ Till I’m roused,” corrected Miss Staines; 
“ then I can be as wicked — as the devil.” 


152 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ That you can, and hit as hard,” Sir Wil- 
frid was heard acidly murmuring between his 
teeth, as Rosalind rather suddenly ro!se, and 
he went to open the door for the ladies. 

What the deuce is the matter with 
those two girls to-night?” Gerald Dover 
wondered to himself when they were gone. 
“ Carr hasn’t made any running as yet. I 
doubt if he ever will.” 

“ My dearest Margery,” said the vicar’s 
wife on reaching the drawing-room, “ I am 
grieved to hear you allowing yourself the sad 
license of speech characteristic of too many 
young women of the present day.” 

“ It was horrid of me, wasn’t it? ” she 
smiled back with infantile cheerfulness and 
candour. “ But it was only quotations, after 
all.” 

Not from Ibsen, I earnestly trust.” 

Oh, no, not from Ibsen! It didn’t sound 
Ibscene, now, did it? ” 

“ I am happily unacquainted with these 
new writers, my dear, so I can not tell.” 

“ But why,” asked Brandon of Rosalind 


SWEET REVENGE 


153 


later in the evening — “ why did you tell us 
you were ugly? Were you never taught 
that it is wrong to tell stories? ” 

- “ I beg your pardon, Mr. Brandon. I 
said I was a plain woman, and so I am — both 
in speech and action.” 

“ Well, but Miss Staines declared that 
your temper was something awful.” 

Such a temper,’ she said. She meant 
such a delightfully sweet temper. But I 
can’t answer for it myself. It was kind of 
Margie.” 

They were having coffee in the open air 
on a terrace, whence the Castle, all silver- 
steeped in moonlight, and a peep of sea be- 
tween two hill slopes, could be seen. Cock- 
chafers were still droning in the almond- 
scented clematis, a little warm breeze stirred 
the beech tops, yellow corn stood in aisle on 
a slope above the peaceful village, where 
little orange dots suggested homesteads ; 
the tree-shadowed lawns and dim, dreaming 
flowers looked magical and unreal in the sil- 
very light. 


154 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


Arthur Brandon’s thoughts ran into in-, 
voluntary rhyme; he had never been so 
happy in his life. Yet he wished the never- 
before-coveted burden of riches was his; still 
more he wished Rosalind Ormonde poor. 
Wilfrid Carr and some other vandals were 
spoiling the dewy flower scents with cigars, 
Wilfrid wondering how he was to go through 
the promised week at Dover’s seaside cot- 
tage and continual meetings with the Carlen 
people after this unlucky fiasco. “ And to 
crown all,” he reflected, “ I must needs try to 
kiss the wrong girl. How like my luck! ” 
Still even Carr was happier than he de- 
served to be; the dust and stones that in- 
commoded him in the afternoon now strewed 
the carpet of his dressing room; he had a 
sort of vague idea that the best thing would 
be to sit on that terrace forever and watch 
that tiny ship sailing far and far away on the 
moonlit sea, and the proud Castle dreaming 
in mystic light of its vanished glories, and 
the village nestling in foliage by the church 
tower at the foot of the steep. 


SWEET REVENGE 


155 


But Brandon, the briefless, the impecuni- 
ous, the blessed, saw all these things with 
equal joy — and he saw more: he saw a shad- 
owy company of plumed knights ride with 
faint, far-off clang over the drawbridge, saw 
the moon rays glitter on the breastplates of 
men at arms; saw banners flutter lightly as 
the gray moths on the terrace, and fair ladies 
leaning from battlements to wave the knights 
Godspeed. All this fancy showed him, though 
ladies fair as any of old moved actually in 
white, shining raiment among the flower 
scents on the terrace, their voices sound- 
ing with the charm of open air and still- 
ness, their eyes softer than silvery stars in 
the pale moonlit sky. Had not minstrels of 
old dared to pay homage of song to lovely 
chatelaines'^ But how should a minstrel in a 
dress suit and hideous white breastplate — 
Just then this modern chatelaine, her pearls 
half muffled in a silky wrap, happened to turn 
and meet the full and ardent gaze of the silent 
minstrel’s eye, so that for one beatific mo- 
ment two young hearts throbbed together. 

II 


156 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


Costume changes, custom alters: old cas- 
tles and old codes and creeds crumble to ruin; 
but youth and joy, love, innocence, and song, 
are the same throughout all ages forever. 

A few days later Wilfrid Carr found 
himself waiting with a beating heart in the 
library of Carlen House, whither he had been 
summoned by its mistress for a private con- 
ference. “ What could she want with him? 
he asked himself as he stood by the open 
window and looked at the towered gateway, 
shadowed now, with the morning light be- 
hind it, and the cornfields and sea robbed 
of their moonlight glamour. He had not 
long to wait; the plain woman quickly en- 
tered, and plunged at once into the topic in 
hand. 

“ Sir Wilfrid,” she said gently, “ I am 
told that your affairs are greatly embarrassed. 
Pray do not think me obtrusive in asking if 
such is really the case.” 

Such, he replied, certainly was the case; 
it was too kind of Miss Ormonde to be inter- 
ested in the matter. It would soon be no 


SWEET REVENGE 


157 

secret, since his name was about to appear in 
the Gazette. 

“ Well, now,” Miss Ormonde continued, 
with a genuine, delightful, old - fashioned 
blush and an agreeable hesitation in her 
speech — “ could not means be found — ah — to 
be able — ah — ah — be permitted — to help to 
some slight extent — to pay off — that is to 
say, to avoid liquidation ” 

Sir Wilfrid turned pale. He was standing; 
he placed both hands on the top of a chair to 
steady himself. ‘‘ Good Lord! she’s going 
to propose,” he thought, “ and I shall have 
to have her.” 

He said something unintelligible in reply, 
but as she was not listening, and he had not 
the least notion of what he was saying, it was 
of no consequence. 

“ Would ” — she faltered, with deepening 
blushes and a husky voice — “ would fifteen 
thousand pounds be of any use in this 
matter? ” 

“Wouldn’t it!” he exclaimed, catching 
his breath and standing erect. “ It would 


58 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


just trim the boat; that and emptying the 
stables, and so on. But,” he added, with 
his sunny smile and easy relapse into banal- 
ity — “ but fifteen thousand pounds. Miss Or- 
monde, are not so easily obtained as you 
seem to imagine. Fifteen thousand dew- 
drops were on the grass this morning, but 
where was the fairy to turn them to golden 
sovereigns? ” 

“ Not as far off, perhaps, as you seem to 
imagine,” was the tremulous rejoinder. 

“ In for it now,” thought the distressed 
baronet, hardening his heart for a desperate 
leap, as when, in the midst of a full burst with 
the hounds, a bullfinch, a stone wall, or 
double-ditched fence suddenly appears. I 
was never yet proposed to. I don't know 
the ropes. But I suppose I must go for it 
for all I’m worth. I haven’t the cheek — no; 
I can’t ask, after this. There are some 
things you can’t do.” 

Raising his lustrous and bashfully 
drooped eyes to the lady’s gaze, he was sur- 
prised, even confused, to see that hers were 


SWEET REVENGE 


159 


moist with feeling. Something rose in his 
throat, his face crimsoned. “ Beast as I am, 
I’d rather she hated me,” he thought, quite 
unable to speak. 

“ Not far off at all,” she added, in a low, 
melodious voice. “ You have. Sir Wilfrid, 
where you probably do not suspect it, a sin- 
cere friend and wellwisher, disposed to play 
the part of a benevolent fairy to you. This 
person, who wishes to remain unnamed, 
thinks to discern through all your weak- 
nesses, follies, and selfishness ” 

— Weaknesses — follies? ” he thought. 

Ladies have yet to acquire the essentially 
masculine art of proposing. But Rome wasn’t 
built in a day. We’ve been practising since 
the world began—” 

— some substratum of manhood and 
worth which may with time and care be de- 
veloped. It is thought that a fresh start, 
with good resolutions, might — almost — make 
a man of you.” 

I’m infinitely obliged to the fairy who 
thinks so highly of me,” he replied, savagely. 


i6o 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


Fairies, however beneficent, always took it 
out of you in some form or other, if I re- 
member rightly.” 

“ Let us hope you will justify this per- 
son’s good opinion,” Rosalind added, with 
momentary gravity, for the person to 
whom I allude means well by you and has 
the means of expressing good will in a ma- 
terial form.” 

“ Does the — ah — fairy — ah — propose, 
that is — intend — ah — that is to say, mean — 
in other words — if I asked her to — to marry 
me ” 

‘‘ Her? — marry you? Really, Sir Wilfrid, 
you have a pretty talent — for a mere man — 
for jumping at conclusions. Marry you, in- 
deed! Fairies don’t marry mortals, especial- 
ly when they disapprove of them. Besides, 
you don’t know but she may be a man — a 
fairy godfather.” 

“Oh!” returned Sir Wilfrid, crestfallen 
but relieved, “ I — I — didn’t know she was a 
man. I thought they were always godmoth- 
ers. All kindness seems to be feminine.” 


SWEET REVENGE 


l6l 

“ The greatest mistake,” she retorted 
sharply. “ Kindness is essentially masculine. 
This person,” she added, becoming meek 
and embarrassed again, ‘‘ has sent you this ” 
— handing him a goodly roll of banknotes — 
the amount you mentioned. Please — oh, 
do please — take it ! ” 

But he stood silent, motionless and pale, 
with quivering lips and brimming eyes. 
After all, Rosalind reflected, he was a re- 
markably handsome fellow ; and is not the 
beautiful the good, and the good the beauti- 
ful? 

But not to Monte Carlo,” she added, 
with a little tremulous laugh, as with some 
broken words he took it. 

No, not there,” he faltered. 

“ No soul on earth will know. No — no 
interest, no acknowledgment. And,” she 
added, after a little pause, “ don't pay court to 
my Margie unless you really love her.” 

'' Ah ! but I do — I do from the very bot- 
tom of my heart,” he protested, with genuine 
feeling. 


i 62 the WORLD’S MERCY 

‘‘ He’s going to reform and live on penny 
buns and ginger pop ever after,” Rosalind 
told Margie that evening, “ and I think — a 
kiss might very well be thrown in.” 

“ I don’t think,” sighed Margery, “ I 
ought to have hit him quite so hard.” 

“ Oh, the harder the better. It was the 
best stroke of luck he ever had in his life — or 
I either.” 

“ You, Rosalind? But you are not ” 

“ Going to marry Wilfrid Carr, as I 
might have done else. Unparalleled luck 
there. And I am going to ” 

“ Accept Mr. Brandon? ” 

“ Nonsense, child, never jump to conclu- 
sions. But stranger things have occurred. 
And I have had my revenge upon Sir Wilfrid, 
the wretch! ” 

Margery threw her arms round her 
cousin’s neck and kissed her. “ Revenge is 
sweet,” she said. 


AN OLD SONG 


CHAPTER I 

The night was stormy; a wan moon rode 
through masses of swift-sailing black and 
gold cloud, through lakes of clear blue space 
and film of opal and silver, thus producing a 
wildly beautiful and impressive series of sky 
pictures. Now and again the dim, wet 
streets were swept empty and dark by a scud 
of rain, then as suddenly flooded by clear, 
pale moonlight, when the wet flags and 
streaming runnels became a dazzling silver 
brilliance, making the light from houses and 
shops appear duller and dimmer than before. 

Few people were abroad, so that the lin- 
gering steps of a man wrapped in an Inver- 

* Copyright, 1896, by M. G. Tuttiett. 

163 


164 the WORLD’S MERCY 

ness cape made echoes to accentuate the 
silence otherwise broken by a shout, a tipsy 
song, a hoarse altercation from a public 
house, or the inarticulate yell of a wet and 
shivering newspaper imp. Nothing escaped 
this man’s observation; names over shops, 
public-house signs, chapels, private houses, 
all appeared to interest him; while the splen- 
did pageant of the moving tempestuous sky 
scarcely drew a glance from his piercing eyes. 

A dull gleam from the Post-Office at- 
tracted his gaze, and drew from him an 
expression of disfavour, shared by the brand- 
new, red-brick Corn Exchange, in the depre- 
ciating monosyllable new.” Something ap- 
peared to be wrong with the face of the church 
tower, shining out suddenly in the .unclouded 
moonlight, something amiss with the Town 
Hall, whence a lighted clock looked dimly 
down on moon-silvered mud, and on the 
shining wet capes of two policemen whose 
wistful gaze was on the glowing window of a 
neighbouring bar. 

The clock struck on a deep bell; the 


AN OLD SONG 


165 

quarter chimes of another rose, silenced it, 
and declined in easy modulations, tossed and 
separated by wind gusts, to the hour bell, 
which tolled nine to the accompaniment of 
various little sharp, self-asserting chiming 
and striking timepieces. 

“ Flat,” muttered the solitary stroller, 
pausing in a sheltered corner to light a pipe, 
but baffled by damp gusts of wind that 
shrieked and wailed as they tore fitfully down 
alleys and round corners and gulleys made by 
chimney and gable. Then he sauntered on 
without a pipe and buffeted. The moon 
rushed into a black mass of silver-edged 
cloud; the darkened street was deluged by a 
rush of rain. Holding his soft-brimmed hat 
on, he quickened his pace in the face of wind 
and rain, and, as one who treads an accus- 
tomed path, turned a corner and came in 
front of a large building, shapeless and dim in 
the darkness, but emitting golden light from 
its high windows and open two-leaved door, 
whence also issued clear notes of a piano. 

Giving himself a dog-like shake, he 


1 66 the WORLD’S MERCY 

stepped into the hall, took off his hat, shook 
the rain from it, put it on again, and turned 
up the lighted corridor to a small table, at 
which a man sat taking money. 

“What is it?” the newcomer asked in a 
deep, mellow voice. 

“ Shilling — after nine,” the money-taker 
replied, looking up into a lined face, bearded 
thickly, shadowed by the broad-leaved hat, 
and illumined by piercing eyes, in which 
lurked a humorous twinkle. The money- 
taker at once associated the questioner with 
music, he could not explain to himself why, 
and yet he told himself there was a suspicion 
of gentry about ‘the man. 

“ What is on? Not how much,” the man 
in the Inverness corrected. “ It is Josiah 
Whitewood,” he added to himself. “ Not a 
day older or more civil.” 

“ Concert,” growled Josiah. “ Anybody 
with ears might know that.” 

But the deluge of rain crashing on the 
roofs in ever-growing violence was enough to 
drown louder and less delicate music than 


AN OLD SONG 


167 


that issuing brokenly from the hall; the 
storm seemed to have gathered itself for a 
final burst, after which it died down as sud- 
denly as it had begun, in little melodious 
trickles and drips, just as the stranger en- 
tered the spacious, brilliantly lighted room, 
through which rang the pure notes of a 
soprano, singing, “ Bid me discourse.” 

The melody flooded the wide, high hall, a 
numerous audience sat hushed and attentive, 
gazing at the singer, upon whom the light was 
concentrated, and whose figure, in its white 
and shining satin gown, bordered and gar- 
nished with gold, rising above the palms and 
hothouse plants on the stage, seemed to be 
the source of all the light as well as of all clear 
and lustrous melody that filled the building. 

“ I will enchant thine ear, 

Or, like a fairy, 

Dance upon the green.” 

To one coming out of storm, darkness, 
and chill wet into the brilliance, warmth, 
and music, and seeing the beauty of young 
faces, with fragrant hair, rose-wreathed, the 


1 68 the WORLD’S MERCY 

flash of jewels and gleam of gauzy silks, the 
contrast was striking; but to this solitary, 
storm-driven wanderer, it was something 
more. A wave of emotion gathered up as if 
out of the deep heart of some tempestuous 
sea, rushed over his strong face, sending a 
faint quiver through his tall frame. Pushing 
his hat farther over his forehead, he leant 
against a pillar, like one staggered and breath- 
less from a blow. He closed his eyes and 
shut out the bright building, the sea of heads, 
and the graceful figure in shining satin, hold- 
ing her song in both hands before her, and 
swaying slightly to bring out the fuller notes. 

“ Or, like a nymph, 

With bright and flowing hair,” 

she sang. Her throat was full and firmly set; 
one could see the song throbbing in it as 
in a bird’s, at its spring a jewel quivered in 
light that seemed alive. She brought out 
the golden, gurgling triplets of the fairy 
dance without any facial distortion, her 
slightly flushed, unpainted, and unpowdered 
face wore the rapt, happy expression of con- 


AN OLD SONG j^g 

scions artistic power; it was as full of music 
as her voice. Her eyes, when raised from the 
sheet of music, had a level gaze that saw — 
not the sea of faces in brilliant light, but the 
nymph with bright, flowing hair, the fairy, 
the dance, the enchantment,, the unbodied 
things music summons up. 

When the spell broke, as the song ended, 
there was a roar of applause from every part 
of the hall; the artist smiled gravely, bowed, 
retired a little way, and advanced at the 
deepening applause to bow once more, and 
again retire, handed back by the accompa- 
nist, a tall, handsome man. Having reached 
the back, amid the rising surge of a thunder- 
ous recall, she spoke to the pianist, who led 
her to the front, where she stood, tranquil 
and self-contained, but evidently pleased, 
while the loud, excited plaudits gradually 
rolled back into stillness like a fallen wave. 

The man in the Inverness was, perhaps, 
alone in giving no applause to the song, 
every note of which his still, never-wavering 
attitude and fixed gaze seemed to have ab- 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


170 

sorbed. When it was done he raised a bin- 
ocular to his eyes and looked through it so 
fixedly that, with the glasses and the pic- 
turesque hat and cloak, he seemed like the 
carven image of a man, silent, motionless, 
through all the tumult of the recall. The 
singer, without notes this time, and lightly 
holding one end of her long fan in each hand, 
looked over the mass of uplifted faces with 
a new expression; it was as if she loved each 
face she looked on. 

Isn’t she a dear'^ ” murmured a young 
woman in front of the stranger to her 
sweetheart, who promptly whispered back, 
“ There’s only one dear for me.” 

The singer softly sang in pure, round 
notes, neutral, till the name evoked a caress- 
ing tone that rose to passion in the last line: 

“ What’s this dull town to me, 

Robin Adair ? 

What was’t I wished to see, 

What wished to hear? 

Where’s all the joy and mirth. 

Made this town a heaven on earth ? 

Oh ! they are all fled with thee, 

Robin Adair ! ” 


AN OLD SONG 


171 

The first notes struck the stranger like a 
strong sea wave, his hand, with the glasses, 
fell and hung at his side, tears scalded his 
eyes, unregarded by himself, unnoticed by 
them. No doubt he had heard Robin Adair 
often enough before. Who has not? Per- 
haps he thought of some occasion on which 
he hadjieard and loved it. There is no song 
more tender, with a pathos more artless, 
than this old, ever new favourite, as natural 
and unpremeditated as the redbreast’s own. 
But not every singer can bring out the ten- 
derness and heartbreak as did this lady. 

“ What made the ball so fine, 

Robin Adair ? 

What made th’ Assembly shine, 

Robin Adair ? ” 


was sung with gentle wistfulness, “ as when 
a soul laments that hath been blessed with 
sweetness in the past.” 


“What, when the play was' o’er. 
What made my heart so sore ? 
Oh ! it was parting with 

Robin Adair ! 


rose to passion. 
12 


172 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


People shed tears unawares; the sweet- 
hearts in front of the man in the Inverness 
pressed closer together, unabashed, in the 
crowd. 

The soft, sad reproach, 

“ But now thou’rt cold to me, 

Robin Adair ! ” 

was delivered with rare delicacy, and ^ 

“Yet him I loved so well 
Still in my heart shall dwell ; 

Oh ! I can ne’er forget 

Robin Adair ! ” 

became an agony of tenderness that brought 
a quiver to the singer’s lips, and compelled 
the homage of a momentary silence, broken 
by a less noisy but more profound applause. 
For some seconds the man in the Inver- 
ness remained motionless by his pillar, with 
wet eyes; then he looked at the stage, with 
its swaying back scene of marble and pil- 
lared portico, between which gleamed a blue 
sea with a ship in the offing and a skiff 
moored by the steps, with its bower of palms 
and pot plants, its open-winged piano and 
its music stands. All was in bright light, but 


AN OLD SONG 


173 


empty and deserted; a hard desolation 
seemed to reign there in the absence of the 
graceful figure in shining draperies. 

It was no dream; all was real, especially 
the scene painter’s marble portico and sea — 
very real; but yet, through the comparative 
silence, scarcely interrupted by subdued hum 
of voices, rustle of draperies, sound of foot- 
steps and pushed-back chairs, rang out the 
pure golden notes of the beautiful, impas- 
sioned voice, 

“ Oh ! I can ne’er forget 

Robin Adair ! ” 

All true and real. 

He beckoned to a boy with programmes 
and took one, keeping his place while people 
surged round him, going in and out, seeking 
friends and chatting. 

'' Miss Ruby Elliott, soprano,” he read. 
Every one had heard of, if not actually heard. 
Miss Ruby Elliott; yet this man with music 
in his face seemed new to the spell of her 
singing. '‘Miss” he pondered. Singers do 
not readily part with a name that has won 


174 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


recognition. That handsome pianist might 
be her husband. ‘‘ Mr. Ralph Somers ” was 
a known but not a first-class name. 

The concert was in aid of local charities, 
patronized by a long list of town and county 
worthies. Among these occurred a name 
that was as steel to the stone of the man’s 
face which flashed fire: 

The Rev. Dr. Ashworth, Vicar of 

Taking his opera glasses again, he raked 
the dress circle. In front, quite near the 
stage, stood a white-headed clergyman, grave, 
dignified, even stern. He turned at the mo- 
ment, his profile traced sharp and clear on 
the crimson draperies below the stage; he 
seemed to be speaking to a lady near him. 

At the sight of the old clergyman the 
stranger quivered again, the glasses once 
more dropped by his side, to be again raised 
and intently gazed through. A light treble 
laugh rose from behind the scenes, accom- 
panied by a cheerful pop, an opening door let 
out confused murmur of voices, clinking of 


AN OLD SONG 


175 


glass and china, and sudden chime of chor- 
used laughter, dulled by the closing of the 
door. The sweethearts were absorbed in each 
other; the young carpenter, square, ruddy, 
and clean, gazed upon the homely face of the 
girl beside him with a sort of sacred rapture. 
Their words floated up to the man standing 
behind them. 

‘‘ Isn’t Miss Elliott beautiful? ” the girl 
whispered. 

“ Beautiful? H’m! Easy to look beau- 
tiful in white satin, and gold and jools, 
Fanny. The beauty for me is when anybody 
looks pretty first thing in the morning, in a 
print gown tucked up, and bare arms, sweep- 
ing out of a front door. Ah, my dear! and 
looking out for somebody as comes round the 

corner and gives her ” 

“ Go on, you great stupid! And nice 
and silly we looked, with the baker’s boy 
bringing the rolls and grinning! ” 

“ I’ll grin him next time I catch him! 
Fine feathers make fine birds. Fan. Miss 
Ruby Elliott can’t be so young as she looks.” 


176 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ She was a woman grown when mother 
lived parlour maid at the vicarage, George.” , 
“ Before you were born. She’ve kept 
well. Singing is like salt, Fan. She lived 
with Dr. Ashworth, didn’t she? ” 

“ No, she lived long with her uncle, old 
Mr. Forde, the lawyer. Her real name’s 
Forde — Beatrice Forde. Ruby Elliott’s 
only her singing name. Mother’s heard her 
sing many a time at Dr. Ashworth’s. There 
was a pupil there used to make up to her. 
Him over there by Dr. Ashworth.” 

“ Mr. Vereker, that old parson? ” 

“ He wasn’t much of a parson then, 
mother says. Always up to something, him 
and young Mr. Ashworth together. That’s 
Mrs. and Miss Vereker alongside of him. 
Mother couldn’t a-bear him. Poor Mr. 
Robin was different; no harm in him. Isn’t 
Miss Vereker pretty? ” 

“ Not my style. Fan. What would she 
be in a cap and apron? ” 

A fresh burst of applause surged up; peo- 
ple had rustled back to their places, the glee 


AN OLD SONG 


177 


singers were forming on the stage, the star 
among them. The programme showed the 
chief burden of the evening to be sustained 
by her. 

“ She does it all for love,” Fanny ex- 
plained to her carpenter, “ and for the sake 
of old times.” 

The tenor was local. He cracked on the 
high notes, and went flat at the end of the 
evening; the contralto was amateur, with a 
noble, untrained voice; the glee singers were 
amateur. The ’cello player was welt-heruhmt, 
German, and unpronounceable. The audi- 
ence scarcely knew that in the stringed quar- 
tette his instrument had the chief part, much 
less that few but he could so render it. 

As for his obligato to Miss Ruby Elliott’s 
Batti, Batti, they scarcely heard it; yet it 
was like the flow of a deep, calm river, down 
which the fine soprano voice floated with 
steady ease, like a full-sailed ship. 

The solitary man below the gallery, ab- 
sorbed though he was in the sunny splen- 
dour of the melody, involuntarily made the 


178 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


motions of one playing the ’cello accompani- 
ment. But even he was less moved by that 
great and difficult melody, excellently sung 
and excellently accompanied, than by the 
simple and touching beauty of Robin Adair, 
or the pure tunefulness of Those Evening 
Bells, sung as an encore, which made peo- 
ple’s eyes wet again. For the audience knew 
the singer was thinking of their own church 
bells, which she and they had heard in their 
youth on sunny summer evenings in the fields 
near their own little town. 

The numerous recalls and the hearty, in- 
discriminate applause made it late before the 
programme was finished; people were impa- 
tient for carriages and wraps. There was a 
small crush, through which the young car- 
penter gallantly and quickly piloted Fanny, 
and the man in the Inverness more quickly 
slipped himself, reaching the carriage en- 
trance in time to hear the first name called, 
and so placing himself in heavy shadow as 
to see every face in the full gaslight reaching 
to the curbstone. 


AN OLD SONG 


179 


“ It is curious,” the tenor, standing near 
the door within, was saying, her voice came 
to her all at once. She sang at a Penny 
Reading here one Christmas. None of us 
thought much of it; nice, fresh, fluty notes, 
but she couldn’t get at them, and no expres- 
sion. Then, soon after New Year, she sang 
at a village concert near here and electrified 
us all. You wouldn’t have thought it was 
the same voice. People said it was trouble 
brought out her voice. I’ve heard of song 
birds blinded to make them sing. She left 
the place soon after.” 

Carriages rolled up, filled, and rolled 
away. The man in the cape stood in the 
shadow, where he could hear what the tenor 
said, and waited patiently. 

“ Dr. Ashworth’s carriage! ” he heard 
called. The old vicar stepped out of the 
hall and handed a middle-aged lady . and a 
young girl into a venerable vehicle driven by 
a man out of livery. 

“ Dr. Westland’s carriage! ” was the 
next. The stranger, deeply interested in the 


l8o the WORLD’S MERCY 

preceding carriage, glanced* but carelessly at 
this, which took up two ladies, a gentleman, 
and a little girl, until one of the ladies, closely 
muffled round the face, and gathering white 
satin skirts about her, turned her head, 
bowed to some one within the building be- 
hind her, and said “ Good-night ” in a clear 
and rather high voice. 

At this the stranger quickly advanced, 
opened the carriage door, and held it, while 
the ladies and the child stepped in, so that 
their skirts brushed him and he felt the soft- 
ness of satin on his ungloved hand. They 
did not observe him, but he watched the car- 
riage roll out of sight so intently, and with 
such forgetfulness, that a policeman ordered 
him to move on. He moved, on, asking the 
next policeman he met the way to Dr. West- 
land’s house, whither he betook himself, and 
which he examined with much interest, slow- 
ly pacing the wet pavement opposite and 
thinking of many things. 

Were those things sorrowful or joyful, 
sweet or bitter? 


AN OLD SONG 


8l 


Oh, rosemary, rosemary, bitter-sweet, 
wholesome herb, you always bring tears, not 
idle, but ‘‘ from the depths of some divine 
despair,” whether recalling bliss or woe, sun- 
shine or tempest! Your fragrance is the 
scent of unforgotten youth, which was sweet 
and is bitter in retrospect; which was fresher 
than May dew and is now old as a mossed, 
illegible tombstone; which was sad and is 
now sweet as pressed rose leaves; which was 
gloomy with despair, and is now, seen in the 
hot meridian of life, glorious with auroral 
hues of hope. Grow not in my garden, tear- 
watered, melancholy herb; rather let some 
tributary of Lethe flow stilly round its 
flower plots, some dreaming lotus plant float 
on its fountain’s brim! I cannot tell what 
the magic herb brought to the lonely man’s 
mind; it breaks my heart only to think of 
him, pacing the wet flags in darkness, in 
sight of the lighted house, not quite alone, 
since he was face to face with his past. 


CHAPTER II 

“ Well, now,” Dr. Westland was saying 
in the warm, bright house, singing is good 
for lungs, and digestion, too. So, my dear 
Ruby, you are expected to be hungry.” 

“ I am hungry, Arthur, but I would 
rather not begin with a whole partridge, 
thank you. Oh, no! it isn’t so very good of 
me to sing so much and take so many en- 
cores. I delight in singing here — at home — 
and I delight in the applause, desperately un- 
just applause, I know. I was really vexed 
that Von Striimpschen was so absolutely 
ignored.” 

“ Oh! old Von Striimpschen wouldn’t 
care for such an audience.” 

“ Wouldn’t he? Nobody cares to play to 
a stolid audience. It is very cramping.” 

There was a preoccupied expression on 
182 


AN OLD SONG 


183 


Ruby’s face. Her hearing was acute, even 
morbidly so. It seemed to her that slow, 
solitary footsteps on the pavement kept time 
to their desultory chat. 

“ Well, dear, your reception agreed with 
you. I never heard you sing better than to- 
night,” Mrs. Westland struck in. 

Gratified vanity, Emmy,” Westland ex- 
plained. “ You certainly were in first-rate 
form. Ruby.” 

. “ It was not vanity; it was affection and 
' auld lang syne,’ and all sorts of fine 
feelings that nobody in this house gives 
me credit for. And yet,” she added, 
after a pause and a long sigh, ‘‘ it was very 
sad.” 

“Sad? Why?” 

“ Rosemary, for remembrance, and that’s 
sadness. Everything to-night called back 
old times.” 

“ That tenor’s singing of ' Ruby,’ for in- 
' stance,” said Mrs. Westland acidly. 

“ Oh, Ruby, my darling ! the small white hand 
That gathered the harebell was never my own,” 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


184 

she sang with exaggeration and gesture, 
while her husband coloured darkly and burst 
into an awkward laugh. 

“ I wasn’t the only one who used to sing 
it, Em,” he apologized. 

“ Dear me, Arthur, you don’t mean to 
say that you ever sang that wonderful song? ” 
his wife returned, with a face of innocent won- 
der. “ I was very young at the time, dear; 
I was told that Ruby got the name from the 
ditty sung by her numerous swains.” 

“Yet I was not consumptive, and I cer- 
tainly didn’t die. I think I took the pet 
name myself as a child,” the singer explained, 
with a faint flush. “ How that horrid Jim 
Vereker used to mouth the song at me! ” 

“ But you did read Tasso, and gather 
harebells, and had a small white hand,” West- 
land added, glancing at that resting on the 
shoulder of his little daughter, who had 
begged to sit up to supper, and had fallen 
asleep, nestled to Cousin Beatrice’s side. 

“Upon my word!” began Mrs. West- 


land. 


AN OLD SONG 


185 


“ All this was before you were born or 
thought of, my dear,” her husband explained. 
“ Ruby was an awful flirt in those days; who 
knows how many a poor fellow may have 
gone wrong through her? ” 

“ Not that Vereker, certainly. He must 
have been born wrong. Perhaps I turned 
him comparatively right — who knows? He’s 
a canon now,” Ruby added, with a singular 
smile. 

“His poor wife!” Mrs. Westland and 
Beatrice ejaculated simultaneously; a simple 
phrase, but impressive. 

“ Oh, come! poor old Vereker is all right 
now,” Westland interposed, “ and he was 
never as bad as all that. Strange to see him 
there to-night, looking as respectable as an 
owl, with young Thacker howling ‘ Ruby ’ 
half a tone flat.” 

“As that Vereker always did,” interject- 
ed Ruby. 

“ His girl is growing into a nice little 
thing. Well, there was one swain who sang 
‘ Ruby ’ in tune — poor Bob Ashworth.” 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


1 86 

A faint, very faint tremor passed over the 
singer’s face; she looked steadily into a bowl 
of chrysanthemums before her. “ Yes,” she 
assented, “ his voice and ear were both true.” 

“ Poor chap! We were awfully sorry for 
him. I never could understand how he came 
to do for himself to that extent.” 

“ Oh, it was all that Vereker! The other 
was only a scapegoat,” Beatrice cried in a 
half-stifled voice. 

How like a woman to be so unjust! It 
wasn’t all Vereker, Ruby. It was just this: 
Vereker was older. He had a knack of never 
being found out. He’d been through a pub- 
lic school and Robin had never stirred from 
the vicarage. Vereker led Ashworth, one of 
the most unlucky fellows upon the earth, 
into scrapes ” 

‘‘ And sneaked out himself and left Robin 
to take the consequences,” Ruby added. 

Robin was loyal and guileless; Vereker a 
liar and a sneak. One was a man of honour 
and a gentleman, the other a coward and a 
cur.” 


AN OLD SONG 


187 

“ And a canon,” Westland added softly, 
with an affectionate smile. “Ah, Ruby! 
what should we poor men do if women didn’t 
side with the weak and unlucky? ” 

“What did Bob Ashworth do?” Mrs. 
Westland asked. “ I have a dim remem- 
brance of something whispered about and we 
children being told not to ask questions.” 

“ Oh, that’s an old scandal,” her hus^ 
band replied. “ I was not at home at the 
time. I was at Guy’s. I went up that Oc- 
tober. I’d been reading with old Ash- 
worth.” 

“ Oh,” said Beatrice, “ it was a sad, sad 
story! He was tempted and — trapped. His 
father was so injudicious and so harsh. 
Fancy allowing a man, a grown man, no 
pocket money! It was intolerable. Poor 
old man! He suffered sadly — yet justly. 
But oh! it was bitter — bitter for the son!” 
The voice failed — there came a long, long 
sigh. 

“ It was intolerable,” Westland assented 

in the same gentle tone, with the same half- 
13 


88 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


reverent, half-compassionate glance he had 
bent upon the singer’s moved, sweet face, on 
which years had written nothing that was 
not noble. Old Ashworth never realized 
that Robin was anything but a child. Clar- 
ence went to Marlborough and Sandhurst, 
Wilfrid to Winchester and Oxford; but when 
Robin left the grammar school he was kept 
at home with his father’s pupils — forgotten, 
as it were.” 

“ His father wished him to be a clergy- 
man,” Beatrice added. 

“ So he articled him to a solicitor. 
' Promise to be a parson, and you go to Ox- 
ford,’ was the old man’s catchword. ‘ Not 
I,’ was Robin’s. I fancy that was the staple 
of their conversation for years. Then the 
doctor used to pray at him in family prayers, 
and make him go to missionary meetings and 
perpetual Sunday schools. As for old Aunt 
Berry, she was a poor substitute for a moth- 
er; every peccadillo of Robin’s was exag- 
gerated and carried to his father, instead of 
being smoothed over and hidden. Vereker 


AN OLD SONG 1 89 

used to talk to the doctor about his soul, and 
whatever devilry he was about in the week 
he always turned up in a top hat at church 
on Sunday. Robin would refuse to discuss 
his soul; he said it was indelicate. He often 
missed church and never remembered the 
sermon. Vereker was free, providing he 
came in at eleven at night, and spent his time 
as he pleased. Robin, going daily to work 
at Jackson Forde’s office, was treated as a 
schoolboy. He and Vereker used to play 
billiards at the Red Dragon, but Ashworth 
went against his father’s will, and with no 
money. Only one thing could come of this.” 

“ Uncle Jackson used to think the father 
and son actually hated each other,” Beatrice 
said. 

But Robin was in reality the favourite 
son; his mother died at his birth. Wilfrid 
and Clarence did as others did — they were not 
saints. Their bringing-up was considered a 
failure. Robin was to be perfect. Every- 
body liked Bob Ashworth. Not even his 
grim father could quench his high spirits. 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


190 

though his jokes were not always original or 
witty. Oh, Ruby! do you remember the 
black bishop? ” 

“ I never quite got at the rights of it. 
Some harmless joke, wasn’t it? ” 

“ Let us hear about the black bishop,” 
Mrs. Westland said. “You can smoke if 
you like, Arthur.” 


/ 


CHAPTER III 

It was when Vereker first came, and 
about a year before Ashworth was articled to 
your uncle,’' Westland began, when he* had 
set his cigar going. I wasn’t in it. A real 
nigger bishop, was to stay at the vicarage and 
carry on a regular missionary campaign. It 
involved correspondence. ' Do it between 
you, lads,’ the doctor said blandly one morn- 
ing, leaving us a pile of circulars to address. 
I sulked, Vereker was gracious, Robin glum. 
But as soon as the doctor had left the study 
Vereker swore he would see everybody ex- 
actly where the doctor wished them not to 
go before he would bother over the beastly 
things. My observations were not pious; 
but it was, as usual, the unlucky Robin who 
was caught by the doctor coming back with 
an afterthought. 


igi 


192 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ ‘ Confound the blessed nigger! ’ Robin 
was complaining. ‘ White bishops are nui- 
sance enough. I wish to goodness he’d con- 
vert the governor and take him off to Tim- 
buctoo to show about at nigger meetings, 
and leave us to have a little peace.’ 

“ Ashworth was still at Coventry for this 
expression on the day the bishop was ex- 
pected. A curate and a churchwarden were 
invited to meet him. He was to arrive at 
seven and dine at half-past. Rob and I, to 
make room, were to dine alone together in 
the study. 

“We were in the drawing-room, all but 
Robin, about seven that night. Aunt Berry 
was on the sofa in state, with the church- 
warden at her side; the doctor on the hearth 
rug, his hands under his coat tails, talking 
to the curate; Vereker, with a book of en- 
gravings at a distant table, drawing cari- 
catures of Aunt Berry and the doctor; I, a 
little behind him, wishing the dinner bell 
would ring, and planning a quiet read after 
dinner. It was a stormy October night. 


AN OLD SONG 


193 

curtains were drawn, lamps lit, a bright little 
fire burning. 

“ When the doorbell rang the doctor, 
thinking it was the bishop, left the room to 
receive him in the hall. I heard the two 
voices just outside the door, the bishop’s a 
little nasal and high pitched. He would 
rather come to the drawing-room at once, 
was not wet, having driven from the station. 

“ So the doctor, beaming and gracious, 
brought in the honoured guest and solemnly 
introduced the Bishop of Nigritia to ‘ my 
sister. Miss Ashworth,’ who was delighted 
and honoured to make the personal acquaint- 
ance of one so deeply revered, whose labours 
in the vineyard had so greatly edified the 
Christian world. Then the curate was pre- 
sented to the bishop; then the churchwarden, 
Vereker, and myself. 

‘‘ We had all risen at the bishop’s entrance, 
and looked at him with quite as much curios- 
ity as was decent. His costume was correct, 
gaiters, apron, and all, but of a marvellously 
bad fit; Vereker suggested to me that he 


94 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


had grown lean owing to long abstinence 
from cold roast missionary. He had an in- 
telligent, grave face, with well-formed Euro- 
pean features, large, soft eyes, grizzled wool, 
and plenty of it. He was about the doctor’s 
height, we observed, as he stood beside him 
on the hearth rug. Indeed, he was not unlike 
a black replica of the doctor, though rather 
wide in the waist; his manner was dignified 
and commanding, yet suave; he had more ges- 
ture than one expects in an English bishop, 
a foreign accent, yet a ready flow of speech. 

‘‘ He lamented the coldness of English 
congregations and the sad lack of enthusiasm 
and resulting pence at the last missionary 
meeting over which he had presided, told one 
or two delightful anecdotes of converted na- 
tive chiefs, and inquired tenderly for the date 
of the curate’s conversion. He praised the 
missionary zeal (measured by subscriptions) 
in the doctor’s parish. 

At the doctor’s desire he narrated the 
detailed circumstances that had resulted in 
the conversion and baptism of a whole Afri- 


AN OLD SONG 


195 


can tribe at his preaching. He suffered the 
doctor to question and draw him out, and 
explain him to the company with the amiable 
readiness of a celebrity in the hands of an in- 
terviewer. 

The accounts of the persecutions he 
had suffered from his tribe in consequence of 
his conversion were under rather than over 
stated, he said. He had been roasted over a 
slow fire, he rejoiced to say; in fact he had 
been done quite brown. The doctor looked 
somewhat bewildered at this expression, but 
Aunt Berry and the churchwarden were quite 
overcome by the bishop’s wit, and laughed 
as ecstatically as if they were at a religious 
meeting, and the doctor finally joined in. 

“.The bishop seemed pained by their lev- 
ity. ‘ I did deserve dis roast,’ he added sad- 
ly, ' for I was de most bad man, de biggest 
sinner in all dis world.’ He paused, over- 
come by emotion, and put his handkerchief 
to his face, his shoulders heaving. ‘Alas!’ 
he added, subduing his feelings with diffi- 
culty, ‘ it was too sad. I did eat my fellow- 


ig6 the WORLD’S MERCY 

men and ’ — with a deep sigh — ‘ dey did not 
always agree with me.’ 

“ A sort of delighted horror sat on Aunt 
Berry’s face at this revelation; the church- 
warden ejaculated in a tone that combined 
reprobation with approval; the curate — it 
was that dear little chap, Kendal, Ruby, you 
remember him, he worshipped at your shrine 
— being consumptive and gentle - hearted, 
looked as if he were halfway between Dover 
and Calais on a choppy sea; the doctor 
stared; Vereker was so much overcome that, 
putting his handkerchief to his face, he 
jumped up and went and sat in a dimly light- 
ed corner of the conservatory adjoining the 
room, where I heard him gurgling and chok- 
ing. ‘ Beastly cad,’ I thought, ‘ he’s putting 
it on.’ But he wasn’t. 

“ The bishop sighed profoundly and 
looked round the room in the deep silence 
with a sort of gratified sadness. ‘ From dis,’ 
he continued, ‘ I would save my black brud- 
ders; from dis and oder bad sings. My young 
brudder Kendal is shocked by de badness 


AN OLD SONG 


197 


of dis nigger, what den would he sink, did he 
know dose more badder sings I must not tell 
in dis pious priest house? ’ 

“ All, led by the doctor, joined in con- 
fused deprecatory murmurs, mingled with ex- 
pressions of joy at the bishop’s conversion, 
though I thought the doctor still seemed to 
share the sort of creepiness I felt at the sight 
of a live nigger who had actually eaten long 
pork. Vereker stole in from the conserva- 
tory and kindly offered Kendal Aunt Berry’s 
smelling bottle, which the little chap haught- 
ily declined. Just at this moment everybody 
talking at once to the centre of interest, on 
whom every eye was fixed, the door opened, 
and the parlour maid announced, gaspingly: 

“ ‘ The Bishop of Nigritia! ’ 

My dear Emmie, I never saw people 
look so flabbergasted in my life, when, in 
the sudden silence produced by this astound- 
ing announcement, a genuine, shiny-faced 
nigger, with a squab nose, an immense red 
nether lip, and benign expression, walked in, 
and began, with courteous self-possession and 


198 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


in correct English, to apologize for his late 
arrival, addressing himself first to Aunt 
Berry, and then looking round for his host, 
when, of course, he perceived the other black 
bishop. Then his eyes rolled till we saw 
nothing but the whites; he lifted up his 
black hands, which were pink inside, and be- 
came speechless. 

“ The other bishop was speechless; every- 
body was speechless; Vereker was black in 
the face with suppressed laughter; the doc- 
tor looked lividly pale with rage. Aunt 
Berry gasped, the churchwarden and the cu- 
rate stood open-mouthed for at least a min- 
ute, when the first bishop, quickly extin- 
guishing the lamp nearest him and signing to 
Vereker and me to put out the other, dashed 
across the room to the south window, which, 
you remember, is opposite the door, and 
made a clean bolt through it, smashing a 
pane of glass in his haste and leaving his 
grizzled wool behind him on the carpet. It 
was Vereker’s wool; he used to wear it when 
playing the banjo. 


AN OLD SONG 


199 


“ I don’t quite remember what followed, 
but I shall never forget the next morning in 
the study. 

“ Vereker and I were first summoned. 
The sight of that old man’s face and his 
blazing eyes gave me gooseflesh all over. I 
weakly said something about Robin’s ‘ not 
meaning anything,’ and his father raved at 
me. That sneak Vereker deplored Robin’s 
flippancy and profanity, and the doctor, to 
my great joy, fell foul of him. I hoped he 
would knock him down, but Jim discreetly 
vanished before he had time to. Then I was 
ordered out of the room, and Robin called in. 

“ Rob was really sorry and ashamed. He 
told me that he had never meant to go so far, 
but was carried away by the unexpected suc- 
cess of his make-up. ‘ I didn’t think I could 
have worked such a sell on the governor,’ he 
said, ‘ and I was certain you fellows would 
know me. It was Aunt Berry’s opening 
speech that did it. Having got such a rise 
out of the old girl, I was bound to go on. 
You all played up to me to that extent I 


200 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


firmly believed I was the bishop before the 
end. I shall never forget little Kendal’s face 
when I confessed the long pork.’ ” 

“ What could have put such an unlucky 
prank into his head?” Ruby wondered. 

The real bishop had telegraphed that he 
was coming by a later train than that first de- 
cided on. He had sent a portmanteau on by 
a morning train; the portmanteau had come 
unfastened on the way, and the housemaid, 
seeing the things had got wet, had taken 
them out and dried and arranged them by 
the spare bedroom fire. The telegram had 
been given to Robin, his father not being at 
home, whereupon the devil entered into him 
and he planned this unlucky trick. 

“ The study door was shut upon those 
two for a long time that morning; we heard 
loud angry voices from within, and at last a 
struggle; then the door burst open and Robin 
came out, pale and wild with anger. He 
took his hat from the stand, opened the hall 
door and went out. The doctor followed 
him and asked where he was going. 


AN OLD SONG 


201 


“ ‘ To the dogs/ he replied, turning with 
eyes like two live coals, ‘ since you wish it.’ ” 
“‘Stop!’ thundered his father, whose 
face was as the face of a demon, or that of 
John Knox preaching before Mary, Queen of 
Scots, ‘ or never return! ’ 

“ But Ashworth walked on, his hat over 
his eyes, his head bept down, his hands in his 
pockets. He was in one of his black rages, 
and Vereker and I both knew better than to 
interfere with him till he had quieted down. 
Nothing was heard of him for three mortal 
months, at the end of which I had a short 
letter from a hospital. ‘ Come and see me, 
I’m all broken up and done for.’ And, of 
course, I went — ah!” 

A long, loud peal at the night bell roused 
the quiet house and broke up the little circle. 
Even then Beatrice could not quite lose the 
sound of steps pacing on the flags opposite. 


CHAPTER IV 

The night was bright with moonshine, 
but the wind roared and rioted round the 
house till it shuddered as if in a giant’s grasp. 
When the hours had grown small Mrs. West- 
land, wrapped in a dressing gown, and sit- 
ting by the fire with a novel in her hand, 
looked up to see Beatrice enter the room in 
like array. 

“ I can’t sleep, Emmie; may I keep you 
company? ” she asked. So they sat and 
talked brokenly in the lull of the storm. 

It’s no use to be jealous,” Emmie pres- 
ently said, “ but Arthur worships you still. 
Why wouldn’t you have him? ” 

'' Dear Emmie, I didn’t want him. And I 
don’t think he wanted me, really. He is per- 
fectly happy as it is; he couldn’t have a bet- 
ter wife.” 


202 


AN OLD SONG 


203 

“ Of course not; but men always want 
what they can’t get.” 

“ Until they get it. What a true friend 
Arthur was to Robin Ashworth. I shall al- 
ways love your husband for that, Emmie. 
He it was who made peace between father 
and son, and put fresh life into that poor 
fellow, who. was sinking from despair. But 
there were many embassies before terms were 
obtained that made it possible for Robin to 
go home and begin again.” 

“ But where had he been? ” 

“ He never would say; silence on that 
point was one of his stipulations. He had 
done no wrong, he said; that he had suffered 
was evident. About that time he was much 
at my uncle’s house. Uncle Jackson and I 
were both so sorry for him. He used to 
sing; I accompanied him on the piano. He 
played the ’cello a little by ear; he had 
never learnt music. My aunt made him 
welcome, and Miss Ashworth and the doc- 
tor always had a weak spot in their iron 

hearts for me, so that there was perpet- 
14 


204 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


ual coming and going between our two 
houses.” 

“ In plain English, they all fell in love 
with you — the doctor and all — and you flirted 
shamefully. The coal scuttle is nearest to 
you; put on more coal, Ruby.” 

“Well!” returned Beatrice, as she care- 
fully built up a bright fire, “ I dare say I may 
have carried on with some of them. Did 
you never carry on in the days of your youth? 
Your sister was one of the set of quite young 
people so much at my uncle’s then. She was 
distinctly the belle of our set. But one 
thing I swear — I never gave that Vereker the 
slightest encouragement.” 

“ Of course you gave poor Arthur no 
encouragement, either.” 

“ I liked Arthur; he was such a loyal, 
trustworthy fellow, but I think he always 
understood.” 

“ Or Robin Ashworth? ” 

“ Poor Robin! What a man he might 
have been if he had had but a chance; every- 
thing was against him.” 


AN OLD SONG 


205 

So Arthur says. He hated the law; I 
suppose that made him wild.” 

“Ah! but he was only too thankful to 
have a chance of any profession but the 
church. He did very well in the office; my 
uncles thought him quite a promising pupil. 
He must have got into serious scrapes during 
that idle time, and it was not easy to get out 
of them, I suppose. I wonder why things 
come back so vividly at times, Em? To- 
night, now, things long forgotten rise up — 
little trivial things connected with those old, 
sweet, sad days ” 

Her voice broke, she rose and paced the 
room; the young matron by the fire looked 
at her with astonishment, and saw that she 
was crying. 

“Ruby!” she exclaimed. “You — you 
who have no care, no trouble? Successful, 
rich, loved, admired, so devoted to the 


“Art!” echoed Beatrice, wringing her 
hands together and flinging them apart 
again. “Emmie!” she cried, turning, sink- 


2o6 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


ing on her knees by her friend’s side and 
allowing herself to be folded in her arms, 
“ Emmie!” 

The other rocked slightly, as if hushing 
one of her babies, “Poor dear!” she mur- 
mured, stroking the drooped head. “Ah!” 
she thought to herself, “ she cared for 
Arthur, after all.” 

Presently Beatrice raised her head with a 
change of manner and a curious little laugh. 
“ I feel that I must tell it all at times,” she 
said. “ Pm like the Ancient Mariner.” 

“ Do, darling, tell me all about it.” 

Then Beatrice rose and reseated herself in 
her usual manner, holding a fan to screen her 
face from the bright fire, and waited for an 
angry wind gust to die away. 

“ He was only twenty,” she began, “ but 
he looked older, that sad time had aged him, 
and, despite his devil-may-care manner and 
open face, one saw that something was 
weighing upon him; it was as if he had been 
trapped, and was always trying to get free. 
Perhaps even this may have had a charm for 


AN OLD SONG 


207 


me; but he was in reality very charming: 
every one acknowledged his charm. He was 
tall and slim, with good features, and really 
beautiful, laughing eyes. 

“ I knew that he cared for me; he never 
said so, but he never concealed it — yet he 
was capricious, often so distant and cold; 
then I was piqued — I was barely nineteen, 
and much cruder than girls are in these 
days, and — oh, Emmie, I was desperately in 
love ” 

“ Poor darling! murmured the young 
wife, a little puzzled by this description of 
her husband. “ Girls should never be in love, 
but it’s good for singing, I suppose.” 

‘‘ It is very terrible to be in love like that, 
where there is such sorrow — such — ah — fail- 
ure. One does not get over that, you see, 
and it means lifelong loneliness, lifelong 
grief. What does it mean in the life to 
come, Emmie? Does it mean anything at 
all, after all? But for the tangle of false- 
hood round him, I might have saved him. 
Had I once suspected what it was that 


208 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


haunted him, why he wore the hunted, 
trapped look — oh, Emmie! — I might have 
saved him. No, I won’t cry; what are tears 
in grief like this? I seem happy, do I? 
Well, one has to live out one’s life. It is 
only at times that it rises up again — the pity 
of it, the unutterable pity! Well, his story 
is a common one — I mean the temptation 
and the fall. Others do worse, infinitely 
worse, yet rise again to better things. That 
hard, sour Aunt Berry was not one to con- 
fide in. ‘ Fancy her Heaven and the govern- 
or’s,’ Robin said one day, when I scolded 
him about neglecting some religious observ- 
ance, ‘ I’d rather go to the other place, 
where one would at least have the comfort of 
thinking one’s friends were better off than 
oneself.’ Poor fellow! 

Well, there was good ice that cold win- 
ter. One day some of our set walked to a 
lake a mile and a half distant — but you know 
the lake; perhaps you were there, a child, on 
that very day, that sweet, sad, terrible day. 
All was perfect; bright, still weather, sun- 


AN OLD SONG 


209 


shine and wine-like air, so exhilarating and 
sweet. Tall pines, standing dark against 
blue sky, and presently darker against the 
orange, red, and green of a divine sunset, and 
then above the tree tops the white evening 
star. And one was young — young and fresh 
and- happy; one didn’t know what trouble 
meant, much less sin and shame. Vain, too, 
one was, and much admired. I wqre a blue 
gown, fitting closely to the figure, and a 
small velvet hat, and threw my furs aside to 
skate. Robin put on my skates; we skated 
a good deal together hand in hand. It was 
divine. I heard people say, “ What a hand- 
some couple!” as we passed them. His 
eyes were full of fire, the clear red was in his 
face, and I looked up and saw — what I knew 
before — that he loved me. W e flew to- 
gether round and round that lake. 

Presently, when the sun was dropping 
behind the pines, we sat on the bank and 
looked on. Suddenly Robin exclaimed, ‘That 
beastly cad Vereker! ’ Vereker had knocked 
down some boys on a slide, skating through 


210 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


them, spoiling their slide, and leaving them 
howling. ' I beg your pardon. Miss Ford,’ 
he added. ‘ Why do you beg my pardon? ’ 
I asked. ' He w a cad, and I only wish I was 
big enough to knock him down.’ Then 
somehow it came out that he supposed me to 
be engaged to Vereker — imagine my indig- 
nation! — and that Vereker was his authority 
for this. And in the surprise of finding me 
free his feelings came out, and I suppose mine 
too. And well, it was heaven. We skated 
no more, but wandered in the wood. 

“ Then he blamed himself for his selfish- 
ness and presumption; he was so utterly un- 
worthy, had been a bad fellow, a scamp — I did 
not know how low he had fallen. Had he 
ever thought I could have cared for him he 
would have been different ; even now he 
hoped to mend and live better, and become 
perhaps a decent fellow for my sake. But I 
was not to be bound to him, only to let him 
hope that he might win me; hope would 
make a man of him. Poor boy! He looked 
so manly, so winning; his voice was deep and 


AN OLD SONG 


2II 


SO musical. Oh, Emmie! I was happy — 
happy. But it was too late. One short 
month earlier would have made all the dif- 
ference. 

‘‘ In the midst of all this happiness and 
poetry we somehow found ourselves at 
home; a full moon had risen in the mean- 
time and shone the darkness of real night 
away. Oh! I can see Robin now, springing 
lightly up the steps at my uncle’s, and open- 
ing the door for me with a sort of tender 
pride in me. I passed in, looking up into 
his beautiful eyes: how full of happiness they 
were, poor fellow! Only think; his sister 
married and left home when he was but a 
baby. I was the first woman who had ever 
really cared for him. He came in and shut 
the door. We lingered by a table in the 
hall, talking. Then, when least expected, 
the bolt fell. 

“The hall was brightly lighted; he laid 
my skates and his own on the table, and was 
turning to me with some tender jest, when 
Uncle Jackson came out of the library with 


212 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


that in his face that made my heart sick. 
' Is that you, Ashworth? ’ he said, in a hard, 
harsh voice. ‘ Step this way, will you? ' 

“ Robin looked once at me. Oh, my 
dear! the agony and despair in those poor, 
beautiful eyes — ;the expression of a dumb, 
hunted creature! He turned white, so white 
that I thought he was going to fall; but he 
followed my grim uncle into the library. 
The door closed upon him; I never saw him 
again. I stood dumb and still with unspeak- 
able horror, alone in the centre of the hall. 
The skates lay there, as he left them, for 
weeks. 

“ When he entered the library, where 
Uncle Roger and others sat, he was asked to 
turn out his pockets. He did so; they con- 
tained marked coin, easily identified. My 
uncles promised not to prosecute. My un- 
cles acted unmercifully. I would not live 
with them afterward. They stipulated, a 
cruel and wicked stipulation, that he should 
leave the place. He left that night. He has 
not been heard of since.” 


AN OLD SONG 


213 

Oh, Ruby, dear Ruby! I never guessed 
this. But to leave you Avithout a word! ” 

“ No, not without a word. Next morn- 
ing I had a letter with a local postmark. I 
was to forget him and be happy, he said; 
he ought not to have spoken, irretrievably 
disgraced as he was, but his feelings carried 
him away. The memory of that afternoon 
would save him from despair, and help him 
to lead a clean life. This town would know 
him no more. Nothing could excuse him; 
but perhaps I did not know what it was for 
a man in his position to be entirely without 
money. He had borrowed and bet and 
played in the hope of being able to repay, 
which is a short cut to the bottomless pit. 
Then he had done worse, still buoyed up 
by that false hope of luck. After that he 
had stolen down to the quay at night and 
helped unload ships coming in with the tidet 
he had blacked his face and sung in public 
houses, to be able to replace what was taken, 
and sold the watch he had pretended to lose. 
As for asking his father, well, you know. 


214 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


there is no mercy in that quarter. The letter 
ended with a good-bye that broke my heart. 

‘‘ Emmie, I went straight to his father 
with that letter; I went in hot indignation. 
‘ This is your work ! ’ I cried, to his face. I 
don’t know what I said; I was mad with 
the misery and the pity of it, and I was only 
nineteen. I called him a pharisee and a devil 
worshipper, and told him that the ruin of 
that young life lay at his door. And he — in- 
stead of cursing me — he said no word till I 
had spent my wrath and saw that he was 
shedding slow and bitter tears; then he re- 
plied that I could not reproach him as bit- 
terly as he reproached himself. ^ And yet,’ 
he added, ‘ God knows that I loved the lad 
the best of them all.’ At that I burst out 
crying, and threw my arms round his neck 
and kissed him — I suppose nobody had 
kissed his hard, old face for years. That is 
the secret of our great friendship, our com- 
mon love and sorrow, and his gratitude to 
me for abusing him. 

“ He has been another and gentler man 


AN OLD SONG 


215 


ever since. And in all his seeking and hop- 
ing for Robin he tells me he is quite, quite 
sure he shall see him once more before he 
dies. I am not so hopeful, but I never sing 
in public without thinking that my poor 
Robin may be one of the audience. Some- 
thing tells me he is still alive, that he can 
not die without my knowing it, and — * Oh, 
Emmie, your husband is at the door! I 
must fly! ” 

All through her dreams Emmie, like the 
man who paced the pavement opposite till 
the Westland’s lights were out, heard the 
clear voice singing: 

“ Oh ! I can ne’er forget 

Robin Adair ! ” 

The wind had fallen when they woke 
on Sunday morning; the autumn sunshine, 
hot, even sultry, clouding over in the still 
afternoon in breathless heat, and breaking 
out luridly at sunset against an edge of cop- 
pery-purple storm cloud rolling up against 
the wind. Beatrice went in the afternoon to 
the vicarage, where she poured out his tea 


2i6 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


for Dr. Ashworth and walked down to the 
church with him, leaving him at the vestry 
door, and joining the Westlands on their 
way to church. 

The organ was rolling out magnificent 
storms of music as they entered. They rec- 
ognised a finer, surer touch and deeper feel- 
ing than that of the official organist — who 
was often persuaded to let others play for 
him — and forgot the oppression of the sul- 
try, starless night. The vicar was vexed at 
the length of the voluntary, and darted a se- 
vere look toward the organ gallery at the 
west end, where the organist could see chan- 
cel, choir, and pulpit in a mirror. Then the 
music died down on a minor note, and a 
young curate intoned, “ I will arise and go 
to my Father,” and, being only in deacon’s 
orders, waited after the confession, while the 
vicar rose in the choir and turned, silver- 
haired, venerable in his white surplice and 
scarlet doctor’s hood, to pronounce the 
absolution and remission of the people’s 


sms. 


AN OLD SONG 


217 


The church was spacious and lofty; the 
pulpit was placed high just outside the chan- 
cel, so that the vicar’s passage down the 
choir and up the pulpit steps occupied some 
seconds, and was accompanied by a grave 
yet exultant organ strain. 

The lights all over the church were low- 
ered because of the oppressive heat, through 
which the boom of advancing thunder rolled 
and sheet lightning flashed. The sermon 
was not far advanced, when there followed 
such a hissing, roaring down-rush of rain on 
the echoing roofs that the preacher’s reso- 
nant voice was drowned, and he was obliged 
to stop. 

It was very awesome to the Westland 
children, looking up in the dim light, to see 
the silent throng of worshippers and the si- 
lenced priest, and hear the roar of the great 
tempest in the outer darkness. Then sud- 
denly, above the rush of rain and sullen 
growl of thunder, came a sound the like 
whereof had not been heard in that church 
before — a peal of eight bells, ringing clear 


2I8 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


and regular, as if for a wedding; a second 
peal, hurried and confused; then the clash 
and clang of all the eight bells in the tower 
together. 

Before the startled people, looking up, 
white and wild-eyed, could realize that the 
familiar church bells were sounding of them- 
selves, untouched by mortal hand, there 
cracked and crashed such a peal of thunder 
as seemed to rend the roofs asunder and top- 
ple down the tower — a sound that swallowed 
up the startled cries of women and children 
and the continuous chiming and clashing of 
bells. When that terrific and complicated 
noise of elemental war had grown faint enough 
to let the clanging bells be heard again the 
church was permeated by a sulphureous smell, 
a puff of smoke rolled from a gallery at the 
west end, there was a shrill, agonized shriek 
of “Fire!” followed by the extinction of 
every light in the church. 

“ The tower is struck, and theyVe turned 
off the gas at the main,” said Westland, who, 
with his wife and two children and Beatrice, 


AN OLD SONG 


219 

sat in the nave a little below the chancel. 
“ Keep steady and firm in the rush. Hold 
the girl standing on the seat. I’ll hold the 
boy.” 

Then followed a scene beyond imagining; 
the building that a moment before had re- 
sounded with psalmody, measured, solemn, 
swelled by hundreds of reverent voices, and 
borne upon billows of organ music, that had 
echoed the outpoured prayer and praise of 
a worshipping multitude, words of prophet 
and evangelist, and the well-known voice of 
the preacher, was filled with sounds of ter- 
ror and wrath, anguish and despair; shrieks 
of frightened, trampled women and children; 
threats and execrations of maddened men, 
trying here to free a passage, there to stem 
the onrush of the congested crowd, that pre- 
vented the inward opening of doors, round 
which raged a fierce fight in the dark; call- 
ing of parent to child, child to parent, friend 
to friend; cracking of woodwork where peo- 
ple forced pew doors and climbed hither and 

thither; groans and cries of pain; shattering 
15 


220 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


of glass where a window was climbed and 
forced; and ever through the thick, heavy 
dark, terribly invaded at moments by blind- 
ing flashes of lightning, the weird, unearthly 
clashing of the church bells, the hiss and 
drum of rain on the roofs, the sullen, fierce 
growl, the low, distant rumble, or loud crash 
and roar of savage thunder. 

There were, however, two tiny isles of 
light left in the gloom, the pulpit candles, 
illuminating the gray old priest in his white 
surplice dashed with scarlet, and those at 
the organ, showing the white-robed organ- 
ist, who, like the priest, beckoned to the 
people. They were not seen in the tumult 
and agony until in a lull of the storm a deep 
and powerful voice, calling, Keep your 
places! Be men! ” attracted many eyes to 
the little light by the organ, and a fainter 
echo in a similar voice, “ Be Christians! be 
still ! ” showed the face of the vicar, and re- 
called some feelings of reverence and duty. 
Then ensued a faint lull, through which a 
powerful barytone voice arose, singing the 


AN OLD SONG 


221 


hymn that not long since had died into the 
solemn hush of prayer: 

“ O God, our help in ages past,” 

This was joined half through the line by the 
clear notes of Ruby Elliott’s trained soprano. 

“ Our hope for years to coroe,” 

the two blended voices sang, piercing and 
drowning the pandemonium of human and 
elemental tumult, recalling the frantic people 
to discipline, order, and worship, as a bugle 
call sounded by a gallant child has been 
known to rally a scattered, demoralized regi- 
ment. 

The crowd paused like a curbed horse; 
there was a steady, backward surge, freeing 
the congestion, delivering the trampled, and 
permitting the opening of doors, while the 
choir took up their several parts, and were 
joined by an ever-increasing volume of voices 
singing in unison: 

“ Our refuge from the stormy blast. 

And our eternal home : ” 

to the grand swing of which, helped now 
by the boom of the organ, the calmed and 


222 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


reassured congregation moved slowly and 
orderly, with uplifted hearts, full of religious 
awe and exultation. 

An appalling catastrophe was thus avert- 
ed, and in ten minutes the darkened, smoke- 
filled church, ^fitfully and confusedly lit up 
by vivid lightning, was emptied as sedately 
and calmly as in the full light of day — with 
this difference, that all who could sing joined 
fervently in the hymn, swayed by an irre- 
sistible magnetism, their steps measured by 
the stately rhythm of the martial melody. 
The choir marched out last, beginning the 
hymn for the third time, and behind them, 
with his flock well ahead, came the aged 
vicar, slowly descending the pulpit steps, 
where the young curate, flushed and exult- 
ant, waited to give his senior precedence, 
and share the honour of being last with him. 

The storm had by this time abated, the 
weird bell-ringing ceased; through the un- 
painted clear-story and aisle windows a full 
moon shot a silver radiance, imparting an 
unearthly lustre to the white-robed choir, 


AN OLD SONG 


223 


the vicar’s white hair, and the curate’s blonde 
crop. The organ music rolled on, mixed 
with the thud! thud! of the fire engines; but 
the organist was invisible, the lights extin- 
guished, and the west end shrouded in thick 
smoke. 

No one remembered when the organ 
ceased; the lad who worked the bellows 
could only dimly recall being half stifled with 
smoke, caught up in strong arms, and a slit 
and knotted surplice tied round him by some 
one, who lowered him into the church and 
bade him make quickly for the open door, 
visible in a shaft of moonlight. This he did, 
and fainted just outside. 

The fire, beginning in the lightning- 
struck belfry, had been promptly shut off 
from the organ gallery, and thus from the 
church, by closing and locking the stair-foot 
doors from within. But a side gallery had 
caught, and, though the fire had been got 
under in each place, the smoke had become 
very dense at the west end by the time the 
church was emptied. Beyond a few broken 


224 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


limbs, bruises, and cases of nervous shock no 
one was hurt, nor was the damage to the 
church great. 

The Westlands and Beatrice sat late 
round the fire that night, the doctor eloquent 
on his cherished grievance of insufficient 
means of exit in case of fire, and fervid in 
praise of the man who first turned off the 
gas at the main and then started the hymn 
at the critical moment. “ His voice was like 
a cathedral bell,” he said. '' By the way, who 
was he? ” 

“ And where is he? ” added Beatrice. 

They found him next morning, face 
downward, on the gallery floor. 

. Westland said he must have been dead 
for some hours, and unconscious probably 
for more. A small crowd gradually entered 
the church as the rumour of the death spread. 
Dr. Ashworth, who had been busy apprais- 
ing the damage done to the tower, made his 
way through them to the font, at the foot 
of which, just inside the church, the un- 
known organ player, with the smoke stains 


AN OLD SONG 


225 

removed from his face, was laid in his last, 
deep sleep. 

The old vicar was preoccupied; he was 
thinking of the weird bell-ringing of the pre- 
vious night that he had been just discussing 
in the belfry with Beatrice. ‘‘ Like wed- 
ding bells,” they agreed, ‘‘ forbidden by man, 
but rung by Heaven’s angel, the lightning.” 

He forgot the bells when he saw the 
quiet face of the dead; he looked on it, and 
was silent for a space. Then, spreading his 
hands in act of benediction, he said softly, 
as if thinking aloud, ‘‘ The* souls of the 
righteous' are in the hands of God.” 

After another silent pause, raising his 
bowed head and turning to the little crowd. 
Friends,” he said, “ this was a righteous 
man. When you fled in faithless panic to 
your own destruction, he recalled you to holy 
courage and prayerful trust in the Most 
High. He saved this house of prayer from 
burning, and the people from a dreadful 
death. He thought of others and forgot 
himself.” 


226 the WORLD’S MERCY 

He had scarcely spoken when the crowd 
parted at the sound of a sharp cry to admit 
a tall, slender woman, with a marble face and 
eyes of fire. At her approach the dead man’s 
head — mechanically reverting to a former 
position — turned as if to welcome her, and 
she knelt by his side. 

“It is Robin — Robin Ashworth!” she 


cried. 


A SUMMER NIGHT* 


CHAPTER I 

Sunbeams falling slant and soft toward 
the close of a long, glowing, glorious sum- 
mer day, shooting through translucent hang- 
ings of gold-green leaves and interstices of 
grass and cornstalks, stretching long, vague 
shadows upon sun-drenched turf and dusty 
roadway, burning in smouldering lustre on 
the church tower, chimney pots, roofs, and 
garret windows, touching and dazzling from 
high western window panes, while the sun- 
baked streets below lay in cool, deep shadow 
and townsfolk began to breathe freely and 
think of restful, pleasant things; sunbeams 


* Copyright, 1895, by M. G. Tuttiett. 

227 


22S 'I’HE WORLD’S MERCY 

caught by glass of dormer windows and 
tossed back upon the wall opposite an open 
casement, where the tailor’s son sat cough- 
ing, large-eyed and hectic, made his heart 
faint with longing for the westering light 
upon the cliffs and sea waves, meadows, 
woods, and hill slopes he would see no more 
forever. 

The streets began to echo with steps of 
tired people strolling in the coolness; voices 
floated, softened yet distinct, on the sweet, 
still air with the indescribable tonal quality 
distinctive of summer time. The tailor’s son 
heard snatches of talk rising thus brokenly 
to the window with the scent of his father’s 
pipe and the sound of his father’s slow steps 
on the pavement, where the latter paced, 
with rolled-up shirt sleeves and unbuttoned 
waistcoat, stopping now and again to ex- 
change a word with a passer-by. 

Over the way a large private house with 
two doors was set among the shops. One 
door stood wide, and offered through a back 
doorway a glimpse of foliage, garden, and 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


2^9 

turf, translucent in the late sunshine, sug- 
gestive of infinite stretches of wood and 
meadow and mossy stream. It was the doc- 
tor’s house. By and bye perhaps the doc- 
tor would step over the way, run up the 
creaking stair, feel the lad’s pulse, chat ten 
minutes, and run back again. He often did 
this; it was always a pleasurable possibility 
to look forward to. The boy was develop- 
ing a tranquil philosophy; the most delight- 
ful things in life, he thought, are the things 
that may and sometimes do occur. They 
are also the saddest, but he was not old 
enough to know that. 

The doctor’s old, red-brick house was a 
source of perennial pleasure to the tailor’s 
son, a tranquil stage on which dramas were 
shown, though seldom played through. The 
framework of the daily domestic comedy was 
always visible; an act here, a scene there, 
suggested endless combinations to be worked 
out by leisure fancy. The next scene would 
be lighting of windows and descent of blinds. 
The table in the room on the right of the 


230 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


door was laid for supper; he caught gleams 
of white cloth, glitter of silver and glass, col- 
our of shaded candles ready to be lighted. 

The doctor’s young wife was standing by 
the table, smiling softly and putting the last 
touch to a cool and pleasant arrangement of 
tenderest green of crisp lettuce, ivory cu- 
cumber, young onion shell-white, and deep 
red radish. Such a salad, in the pretty porce- 
lain bowl that had been a wedding present — 
such a salad, she thought, as would surprise 
the doctor, fill him with delight, and make 
him repent his saying that no female hand 
could rightly mix a salad. 

It did surprise him, because she had used 
in generous plentitude excellent clear castor 
oil in mistake for olive. The doctor’s wife 
had yet to learn what tragedy may mar the 
honeyed peace of conjugal felicity; so she 
went on, softly smiling, adjusted her slices 
of hard-boiled egg on the top, and daintily 
crossed the spoon and fork above, all uncon- 
scious of the doom that lurked within the 
bowl. 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


231 


A cheerful pop sounded through the open 
window across the street — the kind of pop 
that inspires delicious thirst on a hot day, 
conjuring up visions of cool and ruddy claret, 
surfy, creaming champagne, or clear amber 
and ivory of the honest native drink for 
which the banks of Trent are renowned. The 
amiable gurgle that followed as the doctor’s 
wife poured the claret into the tall jug was 
inaudible save to herself. She liked the 
maids to be out in the evening, if only to 
give her an opportunity of impressing the 
doctor with due respect for her household 
capabilities. One last touch to the bowl of 
fresh roses a farmer’s wife had tucked under 
the seat of the doctor’s dogcart, another to 
the parsley adorning the cold fowl, a slight 
pause to consider the advisability of light- 
ing candles, and she went out, slim and pretty 
in her white gown, softly singing to herself, 
to call her husband to supper, while the 
tailor’s son watched the gas burst into flame 
in the surgery, and witnessed the execution 
of a breakdown, ending in high kicks that 


232 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


would have assured wealth beyond the 
dreams of avarice on the London boards, by 
the surgery boy, whose subsequent enjoy- 
ment of an effervescent drink out of the glass 
physic measure w^as also visible to him. 

“Horace! Horace!” called the doctor’s 
wife, her white figure swallowed up in the 
green lucent gloom beyond the garden door. 

The doctor supposed himself to be read- 
ing the Standard in the summerhouse in the 
company of a short black pipe and a small 
white dog. He was but just home from a 
long, dusty round of journeys, his head had 
fallen forward on his chest, the Standard was 
slipping over his outstretched legs from one 
limp hand, and his pipe dropping its dead 
ashes on the dog’s back from the other, 
while those mellifluous sounds that give 
pleasing assurance of a good man’s slumber 
played upon the summer air. 

“Horace!” cried the doctor’s wife. 
“Lazy fellow!” The little dog jumped up 
and barked. 

“ Ay— hum! ” 


muttered the doctor thick- 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


233 

ly as he opened and closed his heavy eyes. 
“ No night bell! Heaven! ” 

Through the open doors of garden and 
street the town sounds floated in — a boy 
whistling, the far-off roll bf a carriage, mur- 
mur of voices, the church clock striking in 
lordly leisure nine mellow strokes on the 
tremulous, waiting air, and then, a long way 
off, a sharp, quick click, rousing a sharp, 
thin echo. The click grew sharper yet fuller; 
it broadened and was a click no more; the 
echo ceased, and the tailor’s son recognised 
in the fuller sonority of the strokes the hoof- 
beats of a galloping horse on the hill; they 
quickened down the steep descent, grew 
louder and hollower over the bridge, and full 
and strong on the hard street road, with a 
confused ring of echoes. The people turned 
at the sound of the mad, ever-quickening 
gallop, to see a strong, firm-necked cob, 
streaming with sweat, flecked with foam, red 
of nostril, and with bleeding mouth, ridden 
by a hatless man in shirt sleeves, tear along 
the street and thunder up to the doctor’s 


234 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


door, where, pulled on his haunches, he 
stopped and seemed to shoot his rider to 
the ground. 

No sooner did the man touch the dusty 
road than he was at the door, tearing at the 
bells labelled “ Night ” and “ Surgery,” leav- 
ing the panting horse to blow noisily and 
shake himself on his quivering legs with 
down-drooped head. The surgery boy lei- 
surely finished his nefarious drink, and even 
rinsed the glass before responding to the 
furious ringing of the bells, faintly curious 
to see how long and how loud the man could 
or would ring. The doctor’s wife started at 
the first sharp peal, the little dog barked pas- 
sionately, the doctor dropped his pipe and 
made a face. 

“ Come df-rectly — the chicken are taken 
with the pip — old Grannie Jones has the 
toothache — pray ring a little louder. Where 
is that scamp of a boy? ” 

“Horace, you shall not go!” his wife 
decided. “You’ve had nothing to eat; you 
are tired out, and such a salad I’ve mixed.” 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


235 


“ I won’t go! I’ll be hanged if I go! ” 

‘‘ Come to supper before the ice melts in 
the pail. I’ll say that you are ” 

“ Say I’m out, I’m dead, I shan’t be home 
all night, I’m at church. I’ve got the small- 
pox,” grumbled the doctor, steadily moving- 
all the time, not supperward, whither his wife 
tried to draw him, but toward the surgery. 

I’ve not been home half an hour. Am I 
a slave? Can’t I have a minute’s peace? 
May I never eat? ” 

And the fresh claret you were recom- 
mended, dear. And the salad,” pleaded the 
anxious wife. 

“ I’m dog-tired, and not a horse in the 
stable fit to go.” 

“Please, sir, it’s Mr. Adams, of Thorn- 
ley, and come at once, and he’s rode hard and 
his horse is blowed,” panted the surgery boy. 

The tailor’s son was excited. He heard 
not only the loud, continuous ringing at the 
surgery, but the urgent summons of the hat- 
less rider, who now leant, pale beneath the 

brown of his drawn, wet face, panting against 
16 


236 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


the doorpost, staring vacantly at the tailor’s 
window, regardless of the comments and in- 
quiries of a group of loungers, including the 
tailor, while the blown horse snorted and 
shook his quivering flanks and the reins loose 
on his neck. 

Presently the man, after a word with the 
doctor, moved heavily from the door, and, 
taking the cob’s bridle on his arm, led him 
slowly up and down the road. The doctor 
and his wife, the latter conspicuous in her 
white dress, moved quickly about the sur- 
gery and consulting room, opening drawers 
and brass-bound mahogany boxes, taking 
things out and making up a parcel, while the 
surgery boy fled like one possessed down the 
street and round the corner, returning in a 
dogcart driven by a groom, who leapt to 
the pavement at the door, when the doctor 
as quickly leapt into the cart, stowing the 
parcel under the seat and driving off with 
lessening clatter down the echoing street, 
over the bridge, and up the hill into the si- 
lence of the sweet summer night. 


CHAPTER II 

Stephen Adams stood still in the road, 
the bridle on his bare brown arm, and stared 
stupidly after the dogcart. A great sob 
broke from his broad, brown chest, the blue- 
striped shirt on which was open; it was a 
sob of relief. Then he looked at the cob, 
and, going over to the old-fashioned inn, 
relic of past coaching days, the Rose and 
Crown, called the ostler, and helped him 
rub the horse down, loosening the girths and 
rinsing the mouth. 

Somebody gave him a hat, which he put 
on half consciously; then he called for ale, 
drank a pint, and poured a pint down the 
tired horse’s throat. 

“ He done it in half an hour — seven mile,” 
he said, looking hard at the half-foundered 
beast. 


237 


238 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ A rare good goer, guv’ner,” the ostler 
returned, patting and smoothing the animal’s 
firm-set neck, and a rare good un to stay. 
But you’ve a took it out of en; there ain’t 
half a kick in all his four legs.” 

Adams looked thoughtfully at the cob, 
considering how much go was left in him; 
and then, taking a parcel the doctor’s man 
had brought him, fixed it to the saddle, feed 
the ostler, and led the horse briskly away, 
walking him down the street, over the 
bridge, and up the hill before he mounted 
and trotted along the level, slowly at first, 
and then more quickly through the cooling 
dusk and dewy scents of field and hedgerow. 

Hundreds of years seemed to have passed 
since he started in the evening sunshine on 
that mad breakneck gallop, spurred by ago- 
nies of fear. 

He fell to thinking over all that had 
passed since he went forth in the morning 
dew that day, bent upon getting that last 
grass crop, overripe as it was for lack of hands 
to save it, mown. 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


239 

There were still some acres to cart; the 
hands could go on to the carting when the 
dew was fully dried. In the meantime a 
quarter of the heavy grass at least might be 
down — the whole must be down before dew- 
fall — and those acres of well-made hay carted 
besides. To mow one field and cart the 
other before night — that had seemed the 
whole aim and problem of existence in the 
morning. 

And Annie must worry him with her 
petty wants just then! he had flung off with 
a snarl when she raised herself from the pil- 
low on one arm and called after him as he 
was leaving the room, only half awake, his 
heavy eyes full of sleep. Money! Women 
were always wanting money at the wrong 
time. What if Jane’s wages were a week 
overdue? She could wait, but that heavy 
overripe grass could not. Give Annie the 
key to his strong box to get it? A likely 
matter! And the weed that had' got into 
the cows’ pasture to be seen to besides. 
Why hadn’t Annie told him of the taste in 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


240 

the butter before? Who but a woman would 
wait till breakfast that morning to mention 
it? Who wouldn’t have sworn? 

Those acres of rich, waving grass, stiff 
against the scythe, and that insidious weed 
in the pasture seemed of small moment now. 
The whole dairy and the year’s hay had bet- 
ter have gone before that evening’s work 
was done. 

They had been married ten months. 
Stephen had seen without disquiet Annie’s 
rounded cheek sharpen and pale, and the 
corners of her young red mouth droop. It 
was only nature, he thought. And if she 
was found crying at times, why, it was the 
way of young wives on the road to mother- 
hood, so he was told. These women’s trou- 
bles had to be borne. What else were 
women made for? To be borne quietly, with- 
out troubling men. Wives must not be 
spoiled. Men had troubles enough out of 
doors; they wanted peace at home. 

So had he thought in the morning; but 
now all his thoughts were changed. 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


241 

In Spite of his moroseness and evil tem- 
per, he had been a happy man in the begin- 
ning of the day. What would he not give 
now to drag himself from sound sleep in the 
morning coolness and drowsily dress and 
hurry forth, to be called back by Annie? To 
be standing in the mowers’ rank at midday 
with streaming face, sweeping the long, bright 
scythe through stiff, thick grass? To be 
lying, face downward, beneath the hedgerow 
oak in a pleasant doze, hushed by faint 
rustling in the cool, green canopy above, 
half dreaming, half thinking of cheerful 
things — of heavy hay crops nearly saved, of 
glorious weather and consequent coming on 
of blossomed wheat, plumping out of ears 
of barley and filling of oat husks, as well as 
of the lucky chance that the child was not 
to be born till harvest was done, the dairy 
work lighter, and autumn leisure at hand. 

It would not do to have Annie upstairs 
in harvest or haying time, with twenty cows 
in milk. She would get through a good 
summer’s work first, and by next summer 


242 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


the boy would be grown to be a plaything 
good to toss. Of course it would be a boy. 

‘‘ Stephen/’ he heard continually above 
the cob’s trot on the dusty highroad, “ do 
listen, Stephen! Indeed, it’s of conse- 
quence! ” 

Of all things he hated a complaining 
woman, and the querulous tone in Annie’s 
voice irritated him. He knew that he was 
not sweet-tempered, was ungracious, taci- 
turn, irritable. Annie should have known it 
too, and forborne to worry him. A whole 
day often passed without a word from him; 
he meant no harm. He hated senseless chat- 
ter; she knew it was only his way. Yet he 
promised his conscience that if Annie were 
but spared he would be kinder, more sociable, 
gentler forever after. If! 

He turned sick, and pressed his heels into 
the tired horse’s side. The possibility was 
infinitesimal. The cob quickened his weary 
trot; Stephen thought he might be too late. 

The tailor’s son was still at the window, 
watching the street lamps sparkle out on the 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


243 

dusk and a few silver stars powder the pale 
strip of sky that ran like a river between the 
black roofs. He saw the untasted supper in 
the opposite room, where no one remembered 
to draw the blinds, and caught the gleam of 
Mrs. Newman's white gown as she passed 
the open doors, pacing disconsolate in the 
garden, waiting for her husband. 

And always he saw the spare, sinewy fig- 
ure of Stephen Adams, his sunburnt, hard- 
featured face, with red-brown beard and thick 
hair matted over a strong, stubborn fore- 
head. Always he heard the words, Shot 
through the body.” Who was shot, and by 
whom? “Wife,” “Loaded gun,” were the 
only words he could make out in the farmer’s 
hurried, urgent message. 

But Stephen was hearing that shot over 
and over again, together with Annie’s words, 
above the cob’s footfalls, the drone of chafers, 
voice of corn crakes, and chirp of grasshop- 
pers, and a mist of blood sometimes came 
before his hot, dazed eyes. 

The mowing had been quite finished, the 


244 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


hay had been carted long before the dews 
began to fall. The sun was low when at last 
he went into the wide brewus or outer 
kitchen to replace his gun in the rack after 
firing at rooks in the wheat beyond the 
orchard. He had fired both barrels, re- 
loaded, and fired again more than once; he 
had a young rabbit, just shot, in his hand. 
He threw it on the table when Annie came 
in, white and anxious. 

“ Stephen, I must speak in private. It’s 

serious. It’s about — it’s Willis Arley ” so 

far she had panted. 

He had always despised and disliked Wil- 
lis Arley, a fellow who never succeeded in 
anything he tried to do, who read and wrote 
when he should have been ploughing and 
sowing, who left his father’s farm and set 
up for a scribbler in London till he nearly 
starved. He had been one of Annie’s numer- 
ous sweethearts. Stephen had a vague no- 
tion that she had favoured him at one time 
before her father stepped between them and 
forbade Arley the house. 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


245 


It was an old story, so old that it had 
not occurred to Stephen even to be jealous. 
Arley had not been near the place for years; 
there was a rumour that he was gone for a 
soldier, that he was in Australia. He was 
no longer spoken of now; his brother had 
the farm, his mother lived in a vine-covered 
stone house near the church. Stephen 
seemed to remember that she was very ill; 
Dr. Newman’s dogcart had been seen out- 
side the vine-covered house that afternoon. 

Yet when Annie spoke the half-forgotten 
name he turned with one of his impatient 
jerks, the gun still in his hand, and — how 
did it happen? — the maidservant was stand- 
ing by, the only witness — what did she know? 
— the gun must have been cocked, he must 
have touched the trigger, there was a report, 
a cry — Annie was down; there was blood on 
the stone-paved floor. 

Then followed cries of alarm and horror, 
people running in, the saddling and bridling 
and mad galloping of the cob along the dusty 
seven-mile road to the town. 


246 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


The night sparkled with pale stars, the 
breath of honeysuckle hung about meadow 
and garden when he rode into his own yard 
and looked anxiously at his house, dimly 
outlined in the gray summer dusk that would 
not deepen before dawn reddened the sky. 

A dim light showed in the rose-bowered 
window upstairs, another dim light in the 
kitchen below; neither window was cur- 
tained. All was not 3^et over. His quick 
step, heavy with nailed boots, was on the 
uncarpeted oaken stair, where an eight-day 
clock ticked with steady patience on the 
landing and vaguely comforted him, quieting 
the fever of his blood with familiar, home-like 
voice. Outside the bedroom door he paused, 
sick at heart, then softly turned the handle 
and entered. 

Annie’s face, white and sharp, was on the 
white pillow, her dark hair, loosened and 
tangled, lay over pillow and sheet; the doc- 
tor was bending above her, doing something 
to her wounded side; a woman wiped blood 
from the pale lips — lips softly smiling in spite. 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


247 

of the quick, gasping breath that parted 
them. 

Annie’s beautiful dark eyes were full of 
light — such light as he had never seen in 
them, a light directed to the gaze of a tall 
man in a smock frock standing by the bed 
in the shadow of the curtains. 

What man? His startled glance searched 
in the shadow and discerned the half-forgot- 
ten, thoughtful features of the white-handed 
dreamer, the wastrel, the ne’er-do-weel Wil- 
lis Arley. He found himself narrowly ob- 
serving the clean white smock, worn some- 
how with a difference; beneath the evidently 
unaccustomed garment he detected the nar- 
row red stripe of regimental trousers; above 
it the- trim mustache, the clean-shaven face, 
and cropped hair that bespoke the soldier. 

A faint shiver went through Arley’s 
frame at Stephen’s approach; Annie’s eyes 
lost their light, and turned to her husband’s 
face with a piteous pleading. 

“ I tried hard, Stephen,” she panted, in a 
slow, strained voice, that already seemed to 


248 the WORLD’S MERCY 

come from very far off. “ If you had a-cared 
for me, if you had a-spoke a kind word! And 
the child and all coming — I could a-been a 
good wife ” The voice broke into inartic- 

ulate mutterings, the dark eyes closed. Ste- 
phen and Arley heard nothing but the throb- 
bing of their own hearts and Annie’s sibilant 
breathing; a waft of flower-spiced air shook 
the feeble candle flame, a moth dashed madly 
through it; the doctor put something to the 
pale lips; the patient seemed to sleep. 

Some seconds passed. Arley stood rigid 
and erect; cold dews stood on Stephen’s 
strong, square brow; his mouth was parched. 

Then Annie started up. Forgive! ” she 
cried, gazing into her husband’s ‘drawn face, 
and stretching out her hands to him. The 
effort brought blood to her mouth; she fell 
back, her eyes turning to Arley and closing 
with a smile forever. 

After what seemed a very short time 
Adams found himself in the kitchen, where 
a fire had been kindled and a candle burned 
dimly, but not so dimly that he did not see 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


249 

dark, wet stains on the stone floor. The 
doctor was holding his arm firmly; Arley 
was standing before him with a sullen, de- 
fiant gaze in his large, dreamy eyes. 

“ It’s four years since I saw Annie Duke, 
Mr. Adams,” he was saying, ‘‘ till this after- 
noon. Mother died at five o’clock. I’d 
overstayed my leave, and they were after me. 
I slipped along the hedge in the ditch to your 
orchard, and so through the garden and 
woodhouse, where your wife saw me and took 
me to the strong-beer cellar and hid me and 
gave me the smock frock. There I should 
have stayed until I could have got off quietly 
in plain clothes. But I heard the shot and 
the cries, and ran out and helped carry 
her up. That’s all I have to say.” 

And that’s enough,” said a deep voice 
from a dark corner, whence issued two sol- 
diers, while a third appeared at the door. 

Quite enough,” replied Arley, saluting. 

Good-night, friends.” 

Good-night,” replied Adams mechan- 
ically as the deserter and the three soldiers, 


250 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


with a Good-night, all,” vanished into the 
pale gloom, where their measured tread grad- 
ually died away into silence. 

Her last look was for him, and I killed 
her,” Adams muttered to himself. 

I was never more sorry for anybody 
in my life, Mabel,” the doctor told his 
wife afterward. “ The man was like a stone. 
The woman told him his wife had said 
she was glad to go — thankful for the 
shot.” 

The tailor’s son slept but brokenly; he 
was often glad to hear solitary footsteps 
echoing along the silent streets and passing 
into the cool and pleasant night; his spirit 
seemed to pass into the freshness with the 
unknown steps. He waked to-night to hear 
the belfry clock chime four quarters and 
strike twice on the deep bell, that sounded 
fuller and more solemn in the silence of the 
night. The air stole fresh and sweet through 
the open window. It was not unpleasant to 
be awake in the restful stillness. The quar- 
ter chimed and the half hour. The bells were 


A SUMMER NIGHT 


251 


like the voice of watching spirits, telling that 
all is well. 

Then from far of¥ rose faint roll of wheels 
and quick beat of hoofs, louder and louder, 
till the sound ceased at the opposite door, 
and the doctor drowsily dropped to the pave- 
ment. He was cheered to see the red light 
of the shaded candles on the table where the 
supper was still waiting; cheered still more 
by the Hght of his wife opening the door, 
flushed with sleep, in her white dressing gown 
with pink ribbons, her shining hair gathered 
into a long thick plait over one shoulder, 
her eyes bright with welcome and kind- 
ness. 

He thought of poor Annie’s words: “If 
you’d a-cared for me, if you’d a-said a kind 
word ” So, to keep himself from over- 

softness, he roundly rated Mrs. Newman for 
being up. 

But she only laughed and stopped his 
mouth in the proper way. 

The tailor’s son heard the next chime and 

the next while trying to guess at the history 
17 


252 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


of the doctor’s errand; the summer dawn 
came and wasted splendour of purple and 
gc^d upon unseen tower and silent town; 
the boy slept sweetly at last, lulled by the 
unbroken quiet. 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


I 

Three bells having just droned a scant 
congregation into church, quiet settled back 
on the sunny village road, where stone cot- 
tages muffled in hollyhocks and roses 
drowsed in Sunday peace. Cats mused bliss- 
fully on garden walls; dogs blinked on door- 
steps, muzzle on outstretched paws; robins 
withheld their song till sunset; even swallows 
deferred their airy dance till cooler air should 
stir the golden lime leaves in the avenue be- 
tween the church and Nutcombe Place, so 
warm and still was the September day. Pres- 
ently the stillness was broken by the slow 
steps of a young labourer, with dark, lustrous, 
south-country eyes, curly hair, and a ruddy, 


254 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


harvest-tanned face. A snowy smock tucked 
into dark blue trousers, black sailor tie, and 
soft felt hat formed his costume, set off by 
a carnation in his hat. 

Expectancy without agitation was on his 
face; he stopped and looked behind him now 
and then, but his expectancy was chiefly in 
the forward direction. Nothing larger than 
a hedge sparrow stirred the thick dust of 
the village street through which he strolled 
to the last cottage, which was overshadowed 
by the trees of Nutcombe Place, and whence 
the highroad climbed steeply under thick 
umbrage, cool and dim with mystery of 
broken lights and shadowy distance. 

Into the solemn gloom of this tree-roofed 
aisle he gazed long, then returned to the 
church, where, leaning on the mossed, stone 
wall, he waited until the gnomon of the sun- 
dial threw a longer shadow, the drowsy ser- 
mon drew to a drowsy end, and the congre- 
gation filtered out into the sunlight to a 
slow organ boom and melted slowly away. 
Disappointment again, tempered by the sight 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


255 


of a middle-aged woman in decent black, her 
prayer book wrapped in a handkerchief, with 
a sprig of lad’s love upon it, with whom he 
turned to walk. 

“ You haven’t seen our Annie, hev ee, 
Joseph? ” she asked. “ I thought she’d be 
stepping along to-day.” 

“ I should a-seen her if she’d a-ben in 
church,” he replied, and said no more till 
they reached the other end of the village, 
and, with a glance into the sylvan shadows, 
turned across a green embowered in lindens, 
and then up a lane to Mrs. Burt’s solitary 
cottage, and through her garden between 
lavender and gooseberry bushes. 

‘‘ Lonesome for ee,” he said when she un- 
locked the cottage door and they stepped 
into the cool gloom within. 

“ Lonesome a-nights winter time,” she 
replied, laying aside bonnet and shawl and 
unhooking a kettle from the cottrel over the 
hearth. This Joseph took and filled at a 
draw well in the garden, while she laid brush- 
wood on the embers and blew them up. 


256 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ Lonesome it is,” she repeated when he 
came back, “ but anybody do like themselves 
to themselves. There’s the cat and the clock 
for company. I don’t know but the clock 
is nigh as good company as ’Liza and her 
kittens, ticktacken, ticktacken, night and 
noon. ’Liza she’ll bide outdoors now and 
again, but wold clock always bides indoors 
’long with me.” 

Eliza elongated her graceful tortoiseshell 
body and stretched out a white paw in ac- 
knowledgment of this compliment, casually 
cuffing a mutinous kitten before she turned 
again to her rest on the only cushioned chair, 
and the clocked ticked away with an elfish 
semblance of humanity on its face. 

• He’s a middling timekeeper, I reckon,” 
Joseph returned, comparing his great silver 
watch with the polished metal dial of the 
clock, which had often seemed to smile wel- 
come or frown reproof upon him when as a 
child his small legs carried him up to the 
cottage on errands from his mother. 

“ If the chaps in Nutcombe was half as 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


257 


stiddy as he, Joseph, I reckon ’twould be a 
happier place for women folk. Ay, he’s a 
rare good un: oak wood outside and brass 
all about en. He do set the place off, don’t 
he? My poor master set store by en. Jim 
and the rest is always miserable glad to see 
wold clock when they come home. He do 
look that friendly at ’em, they allow. He’s 
willed to Jim, being the oldest.” 

“ Ay,” returned Joseph, who had caught 
the sound of a tired footstep some seconds 
before the click of the wicket made Mrs. Burt 
hurry out, her face lighting up with pleasure, 
to receive the belated guest with such a kiss 
as made Joseph, modestly standing aside, 
blush and sigh. 

‘‘ Do ee set down and rest,” he heard in 
the widow’s voice as a young woman’s face, 
pink with heat, and her comely, country-set 
figure appeared with a basket, that she set 
on the polished walnut table. You be tired, 
Annie. Whatever made ee so late? ” 

Entirely twickered out,” sighed the 
girl with a spiritless air. “ Why ” — the red 


258 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


rushed over her face, her blue eyes lighted, a 
vital energy changed her dejected posture — 
“ why,” she laughed gayly, “ I didn’t know 
there was company.” 

‘‘ I just come in,” faltered Joseph, blush- 
ing furiously. “ Must go on home now.” 

“ You just set down, Joseph Woodnutt, 
and hev a cup of tea,” said his hostess, push- 
ing him to a wooden chair, and taking An- 
nie’s hat from her thick yellow plaits, while 
’Liza, slowly conquering her self-indulgence, 
rose, yawned comfortably, stretched her soft, 
bright body into serpentine length, and paced 
majestically to the newcomer, on whose lap 
she graciously accommodated her furry limbs, 
with a happy croon and patronizing wink, 
her actions closely copied by a small sem- 
blance of herself. Ah, ’Liza, ypu be glad 
to see our Annie, I allow. Crafty little vag- 
got, she knows there’s cream in that there 
basket.” 

“ Mistress went out and cut the cucum- 
ber herself,” Annie said, unpacking the 
basket. “ And I was to thank ee kindly for 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


259 


the honeycomb. And would ee spare her a 
root of the new dahlias? If ee want to know 
what made me late, mother,” she added 
acidly, “ ’twas owing to a friend promised to 
meet me top of hill by the pond meadow; 
and there I set, waiten and waiten till I felt 
that silly ” 

Oh, goo on with ee, Annie!” cried 
Joseph. ‘‘ You said I was to bide down bot- 
tom of shute for ee ” 

“ I never said it and you never done 
it,” she retorted sharply and half crying. 
“ Catch me waiten for anybody again 1 
There’s plenty ready to walk out and do as 
they promise without making a fool of any- 
body.” 

“Well, there!” the unfortunate swain 
lamented. “ Did ever anybody know any- 
thing onraisonabler than a young maid? 
There I ben jackassen about dree good hours 
and more.” 

“‘Jackassen,’ indeed! That’s all some 
are fit for! There, mother, there’s no call 
for ee to look like that. Give en some tea. 


26 o 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


do, and tell en to look smarter if he wants 
anybody to walk with en.” 

“ Come, come, you be tired out, Annie, 
carren the girt basket,” her mother returned. 

Whatever do ee think? Her la’ship was 
after wold clock agen yesterday. She’ll give 
thirty pound for en now without his innards.” 

“ Don’t ee take it, mother. He keeps 
time,” with a withering glance at Joseph. 
“ Why, you’d be entirely lost without en. 
And ’twouldn’t be the same place to us. He 
do look that homely when we step in. Her 
ladyship has clocks all over the place, cov- 
ered with gold cupids and birds.” 

“ There’s clocks and clocks,” observed 
Joseph, taking heart of grace. This here’s 
a fancy clock. Mayn’t I see ee home by and 
bye, Annie? ” rising to go. 

There’s fools and fools,” she replied, 
apparently addressing ’Liza, but there ain’t 
such a fancy fool in this house as ’ud wait 
after eight to be seen home along.” 

“Annie,” her mother said when he was 
gone, “ Joseph Woodnutt is stiddy and good- 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 261 

hearted. He’s put money by. His father 
has the carpentering business, and his vield 
and cows and pigs and all. Joseph can turn 
his hand to most anything. I’d like to see 
ee goo to church long with he. Don’t ee 
set en down too much. A was put off, a set 
entirely mumchanced to-night.” 

“ Why hadn’t he come along then, great 
noghead? ” she retorted. 

But she was careful to watch the clock 
and leave the cottage when its eight strokes 
quivered out; and her mother, watching her 
disappear through the wicket, was not sur- 
prised to see the gleam of a white smock 
through the starlit gloom, or to hear the 
sound of a man’s step in time with Annie’s. 

But what had Annie meant by her anx- 
ious questions touching Jim? 

You haven’t seen our Jim? You 
haven’t heard anything? They were all 
right at Jim’s? ” 

Of course they were all right. Clever, 
steady Jim, risen to be foreman at the poul- 
try and egg shop in the town, and likely to 


262 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


be partner, Jim was the family success; they 
all took rank from Jim. Mrs. Burt’s heart 
swelled when on holidays the poulterer’s 
light cart drove through the village, and Jim 
and his smart wife and children jumped down 
and turned up the path to her cottage. She 
liked to talk of “ My son James, him that’s 
foreman at Stevenson’s.” Her husband had 
been but a farm labourer. His children were 
like to be wealthy tradespeople, she mused, 
turning back to her lonely cottage, where 
’Liza slumbered and the clock ticked, and 
she opened her Bible with a grateful heart. 

She had not read far before she heard 
footsteps and the click of the wicket, and 
saw a moving shadow on the lane of light 
in the garden. 

A quick tap on the door made her heart 
jump. Who could be coming so late to her 
solitary cottage? Going quickly to the door, 
she found a stranger, a town youth, who, 
asking if this were Mrs. Burt’s, dropped a 
letter into her hand and vanished in the 
gloom before she had time to speak to him 


THE WIDOW'S CLOCK 


263 

or to see that the letter was in a familiar 
hand. 

She turned slowly back to the candle, pon- 
dering and turning the packet over in her hand 
as she went; then, sitting down, she opened 
it cautiously, as one fulfilling a grave and un- 
usual duty, and began to spell it slowly out. 

“ Dear mother,” the letter began, I 
write in haste to save time, as young Wil- 
liams is going through Nutcombe this morn- 
ing. Come in straight away. I did wrong, 
but I never meant it, owing to a sudden 
temptation. I thought to make it all right 
again. But, dear mother, if I can’t raise fifty 
pounds by Wednesday I’m a lost man. Jane 
knows naught. Her heart will be broken 
and the children ruined. I thought you 
might have some old sticks to raise some- 
thing on I could pay off later. William has 
something put by. I’d borrow at fifty per 
cent, and perhaps Annie and the rest could 
lend on the same terms. No more at pres- 
ent. Your dutiful son, 

‘‘ James Burt.” 


264 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


The poor woman laboriously spelled it 
through twice, unable to credit the facts thus 
curtly stated, or to grasp the full meaning 
of these bitter words for some time. Pres- 
ently, after staring blindly at the paper in 
her shaking hands, she suddenly felt the 
whole weight of her mischance descend heav- 
ily upon her aching heart, and fell forward 
on the table, her head on her arms, with a 
heavy sigh. 

She remained thus quite still, while the 
clock ticked, the kitten leapt upon ’Liza, 
who waked and played, and a star, visible 
through the lattice, passed out of sight. 
The clock struck the hour and the quarter 
after, and ticked stolidly on; ’Liza, weary of 
play, looked up in vain for notice. At last 
she cuffed the kitten off, sprang on the table, 
and examined her mistress with profound dis- 
quiet and eyes growing rounder and rounder. 
Then, finding neither mews nor purrs availed, 
she gently licked the still, white face until 
Mrs. Burt regained consciousness, and with 
it memory. 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


265 


Ah, ’Liza!” she said, unclosing her 
eyes, feeling ’Liza’s soft fur rubbed upon her 
face, “you’d better let me bide. You dunno 
what ’tis to be a ooman.” 

Then she cried bitterly, thinking of the 
calamity and shame that had befallen her. 


II 


On the following Thursday Joseph Wood- 
nutt lingered, as he often did after dusk, by 
the orchard wall of the farm where Annie 
served. Now he whistled and looked up at 
an attic window that shone silvery in a young 
moon’s light, then waited in the dappled 
shadows, his hands in his pockets, his fig- 
ure motionless. A tree heavy with ruddy 
apples hung over the wall above him, the 
scent of ripe fruit mingled with the pleasant 
smell of fresh-stacked wheat. Save for the 
stamp of a stabled horse, the crop-crop of 
cows munching grass, rustle of mouse, and 
fall pf mellow fruit, all was quiet; so quiet 
that he heard the click of a lattice hasp upon 
the roof, and looked up to see the window 
opened. Then it was not long before the 

rustle of skirts over orchard grass was heard, 
266 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 267 

and the face he expected appeared, pale in 
the moonlight, set in fruit-laden boughs. 

Then there followed a sound that poets 
have likened to the breaking of ripe fruit, 
the wall being scarcely breast high. 

“ It’s the last,” Annie suddenly sobbed 
after this time-hallowed rite. “ I mustn’t go 
with ee no more, Joseph.” 

Promptly falsifying the first proposition, 
as a true lover should, he asked what she 
meant by the second. 

“ I’m not one to go a beggar to a hon- 
est man, and every penny I hev is gone,” 
she explained. “ Anybody as marries me’ll 
have to wait years and years.” 

“ I’d sooner wait a hundred years for 
you, Annie, dear, than marry a millenaire’s 
daughter,” was the prompt and earnest re- 
sponse. “ I want ee, my dear; I don’t want 
money.” 

Mother has sold the clock,” she said, 
extricating herself from his arms. “ Poor 
mother’s heart’s broke, and, dear Joe, the 

family’s going down, and I must giv’ ee back 
18 


268 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


the watch and all. And may you find a 
b-better girl, as will — love ee t-true and 
m-make ee a n-n-nice home.” 

“ May I be blowed,” cried Joseph, “ if 
ever I’ll give ee up or take back anything 
I ever giv’ ee! Look here, Annie, you and 
me hev ben sweethearten this two year, 
though ’twas only a Sunday you said ‘ Yes,’ 
and a nice dance you’ve led me. I’ve put 
up with it because a man ought to give in 
to a maid’s whimsies. And I always acted 
honest. But you and me is man and wife 
before One above, Annie, and the devil his- 
self sha’n’t put us asunder! ” 

“ ’Twill be a long wait, Joe, and I ought 
not to bind ee to it,” was the wistful re- 
joinder. “And I won’t! ” she added. “ But 
I’ll act true. Do ee see this, dear Joe? ” 
drawing a small Testament from her pocket. 
“ Will ee swear on the book what I tell ee 
shall go no further? ” 

He looked steadily into the clear blue 
eyes swimming in tears, then he looked at 
the lane of dappled moonlight on the grass, 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


269 


then at Annie again, and a throb of deep 
feeling shook his heart, and mingled with it 
absolute trust in the rectitude and good 
sense of the comely young woman who 
loved him. 

“ You wouldn’t ask me what was wrong, 
Annie, dear,” he said, his eyes aglow with 
fervour, “so I’ll swear.” 

He kissed the book reverently, then his 
arms went round his sweetheart, and he 
kissed her with the same earnestness. Her 
head sank on his shoulder, she cried softly, 
and told him all her trouble. 

“ And the end of all this here is,” was 
his summary at the close, “ that I’ll never 
give ee up. If you’ll be true to me, Annie, 
I’ll bide a hundred years for ee. But I sha’n’t 
have to bide long,” he added. “ Mother 
shall have wold clock back again, as sure as 
my name’s Joe Woodnutt. And you and 
me ” 

“Go on with ee, do!” was the tart re- 
joinder, accompanied by a hearty cufY that 
made him laugh and stagger. “ There’s nine 


2 JO 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


o’clock, and missus calling, and you yollup- 
ping and making such a chearm as never 
was.” 

With that she turned and skimmed over 
the grass and away under the boughs; and 
Joseph, laughing, turned and trudged home, 
whistling thoughtfully and becoming graver 
and graver as he went. 

A few days later, when the slant autumn 
sunlight was pouring through yellowing limes 
and copper-touched beeches, a tall young 
woman in a straw hat and linen blouse was 
descending the wooded slopes of Nutcombe 
Place, singing and leading a sunny-haired 
child by the hand. 

More slowly followed a donkey led by a 
boy, and bearing panniers containing young- 
er children, picking its steps daintily, surely, 
on the steep descent. 

Down between sun - dappled tree boles 
mother and child danced, singing till they 
reached a seat on a mossy level beneath 
some crimson cherry trees, whence a view 
of Nutcombe Place, surrounded by gar- 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


271 

dens and backed by ancient trees, was 
visible. 

“ Muvver, a story, please,” the little maid 
was beginning when a long shadow fell across 
their feet, and a sturdy, dark-eyed labourer 
stood before them. 

‘‘ Beg you ladyship’s pardon,” he said as 
she looked up in surprise not unmixed with 
displeasure; ‘‘ I make bold to ask ee a favour.” 

So it appears. You are not one of our 
people.” 

“ No, your la’ship. But I be Nutcombe 
born; son of Ezekiel Woodnutt, carpenter, 
that lives down at the crossroads, by the 
stream.” 

‘'Ah! Woodnutt, the carpenter, in the 
tiled cottage with the vine. Where the bee- 
hives are, Gwenny,” she added to the child, 
who nodded assent. 

“ Mr. Barton,” continued Joseph with 
nervous energy, “ was telling me about his 
lordship’s place where he goos to look at the 
stars. He was a-saying, your la’ship, his 
lardship wanted a man a nights to bide up 


2/2 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


long with him and help. So I made bold 
to ask ee to ask his lardship to give me the 
job.” 

“ Really? But why did you not apply 
to the steward or to Lord Sharland him- 
self? ” 

I asked Mr. Williams, ma’am, your la’- 
ship, and I’m going to ask his lardship. Mr. 
Williams says I ain’t man enough for the 
job. Vurry likely his lardship won’t hae me 
neither.” 

But why ask me? ” 

“ Your la’ship,” he replied, nervously 
rumpling his hair, “ is a ooman.” 

'‘Without doubt. What of that?” 

" A ooman, please your la’ship, is ten- 
derer hearted than what a man is, and this 
here is for a ooman’s sake.” 

She looked up into the crimsoning face 
and glowing eyes, then down upon her little 
daughter and smiled. “ But,” she said pres- 
ently, “ what do you know about the stars? ” 

" I don’t know as I knows much about 
’em,” he replied after some consideration. 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


273 


“ but, if you please, your la’ship, I do won- 
der a good deal.” 

‘‘ Can you tell me why the days draw in 
at this time of year? ” 

“ Well, I allow it’s along of the sun going 
south. In a manner of saying, ’tis the yearth 
tipped up south end again the sun.” 

“ But Lord Sharland needs an educated 
man — one who understands the rudiments 
of mathematics and can write clearly and 
quickly.” 

‘‘ I can write so as folks can read, please 
your la’ship,” he returned eagerly, “ and I 
bain’t so slow as some. This yere’s my 
writen,” timidly offering a slip of paper. 

She looked at it with a gathering smile 
for some seconds, during which Joseph could 
hear the beech mast fall and split; then she 
looked up keenly at the writer’s face. 

“ Not so bad,” she commented. But 
the arithmetic, the reckoning? ” 

“ I was mis’able forrard with hreckoning 
at school, your la’ship. And I ben in frac- 
tions.” 


274 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


“ Really? After an explosion, presum- 
ably? ” 

“ No, your la’ship. Ater a day’s work. 
Winter evenings ’long with schoolmaster. 
Him and me done this here algebra. And 
he’ve a-learned me gravity and density and 
that.” 

“ How superfluous!” she thought. ‘‘And 
so you wish to sit up, shivering and turning 
a telescope all through the frosty winter 
nights for a woman’s sake? ” she added. 
“ And I, being a woman, am to try to 
get the situation for you in virtue of my 
tender heart, eh? Very well. Good after- 
noon.” 

“ But, my dear child,” Lord Sharland re- 
plied when the subject was laid before him 
that evening, “ I want an intelligent man, 
who can observe and record, as well as fetch 
and carry and knock in nails. Woodnutt has 
good work and a share in his father’s busi- 
ness. They rent a few fields, keep cows, and 
do all themselves. And no man can work 
both night and day.” 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


275 

“Not for a woman’s sake?” asked the 
young countess, smiling up in his face. 

“ Romance! sentiment! humbug! What 
I want is an intelligent artisan of some edu- 
cation. The sort of fellow who makes a good 
vSapper.” 

“ Try my man,” she returned, clasping 
her hands on his shoulder and laying her 
cheek against his arm; “ my rustic artisan, 
who thinks astronomy ‘ mis’able interesting,’ 
who has ' been in fractions ’ on winter even- 
ings, and is always wondering about the 
stars.” 

“ What is to be done with a woman who 
gives five-and-thirty pounds for a shabby old 
clock that won’t go, and wants to spoil one’s 
astronomical observations for the winter, and 
perhaps ruin the new telescope, for the sake 
of an ignorant yokel, whose native stupidity 
is trebled by his being in love? ” 

“ Try him, dearest. As for his being in 
love, the woman may be his grandmother, 
for all I know. The clock tells the changes 
of the moon, and keeps excellent time if 


276 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


wound Up. How kind you are, darling! 
When do I ask anything in vain? ” 

On the following Sunday Joseph Wood- 
nutt slept so soundly during afternoon ser- 
mon that it took some time and labour to 
rouse him. When at last these efforts were 
successful, and he stumbled out into the 
churchyard, where Annie and her mother had 
stopped to speak to neighbours, his eyes 
were glazed and heavy, and his words ac- 
companied by what Mrs. Burt styled “ the 
gapes.” She began to consider the natural 
depravity of the human male, and his in- 
evitable gravitation to public houses and 
beer jugs. Even steady Joe Woodnutt was 
male, and consequently malign. 

“ What ever hev ee ben at, Joe? Where 
was ee last night? ” she asked with a sharp- 
ness she knew to be indiscreet. 

I ben helpen folks measuren of stars 
all night,” was the too ready reply, most 
grievous to Mrs. Burt, who supposed it to 
be the newest slang for a night of dissipa- 
tion. 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


277 


“ Young men will be young men/’ she 
observed sadly; must hae their fling. Be- 
ware of the devil’s dancen hours, and spenden 
good money in bad company, Joe Woodnutt, 
avore it’s too late.” 

“ His lardship is not, so to say, vurry 
bad company, though he do bide up a-nights, 
Mrs. Burt,” was the grave reply. “ This 
yere star measuren is miserable pleasant, I 
allow, and brings in good money.” 

They walked on silently, and the young 
couple having wished Mrs. Burt good-bye at 
the turn to her cottage, she trudged up the 
bank alone. 

The afternoon had turned cloudy and 
chill, and gusts of wind shrieked through the 
waning woods with menace of rain. The sad- 
ness of life fell sadly upon the widow’s heart 
as she entered her lonely cottage. The 
hearth was cold; ’Liza absent on business; the 
kitten leaped to her with a feeble mew; 
straight before her, striking the eye with an 
ever new shock, was the place whence the 
clock, with an almost human gaze, had 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


2/8 

looked and ticked its quiet welcome. How 
heavy the silence was! how harsh the angry 
wind-howl in the trees! 

She sat idle and dejected by the unkin- 
dled hearth, her face turned from the place 
where the clock’s outline was marked on 
the vacant wall, missing the sound that was 
the household voice, calling the hours of rest 
and duty, marking events and bringing facts 
and faces to mind. Without the clock all 
stagnated, even time itself; something that 
echoed the slow ticktacks in her bosom had 
stopped too. 

When night fell she roused herself to 
light her fire, cheered a moment by its ruddy 
warmth. But the kettle’s song, ’Liza’s 
croon, the scent of tea, all failed to soothe 
to-night. Whenever the solitary woman 
turned to her table the firelight showed the 
blank on the wall, recalling Jim’s delinquency, 
family pride abased, Annie’s savings gone 
and prospects marred, and the bitter strug- 
gle to get the money. A few days since she 
had been overproud of Jim; now she had 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


2/9 


scarce heart to be glad of his averted dis- 
grace. The savour of life was gone. She 
was accustomed to go out to work where 
extra hands were needed; she took home 
sewing, and made and sold mead, ketchup, 
and such things, thus taking the edge from 
solitude, and making the quiet of her hearth 
and the companionship of the cat and the 
clock doubly welcome. 

But now, when the long, dark evenings 
drew on, the loss of the slow, comforting 
ticktack became more noticeable; with win- 
ter storms filling the woods with eldritch 
shrieks and weird wailings, and rain drawing 
a chill curtain over all, the sequestered cot- 
tage became more solitary than solitude it- 
self; the heavens were blotted out, a vast 
stretch of impenetrable night spread between 
her and humanity. Then in the wild autumn 
nights she shuddered and drooped by her 
lonely hearth, spiritless and haunted by sad 
thoughts and strange fears. The very slow- 
ness of the clock’s steady ticktack had been 
comforting and companionable; from mark- 


28 o 


THE WORLD'S MERCY 


ing the lapse of time it had become an assur- 
ance of eternity. Without haste, without 
rest, day and night, summer and winter, in 
fair weather and foul, the voice was always 
the same, always pregnant with memories of 
her whole maiden and married life, its labour 
and rest, joy and sorrow, sickness and health. 

So a strangeness grew upon her, and day 
by day she pined, losing sleep and lightness 
of cheer and all natural desire of food and 
pleasure in sunshine, and neighbours’ children 
had scarcely left off running in to ask what 
of the clock to set their mother’s timepieces 
by when Mrs. Burt gave up, dazed and seem- 
ing to care for nothing, yet complaining of 
no pain. 

Jim, penitent and conscience-struck, drove 
over with his wife; but the couple could 
scarcely get a word from her save that she 
was lonesome and worn out. He brought 
her a cheap timepiece, with a quick, loud 
tick, that fretted her nerves and never told 
correct time. 

Toward the new year Annie found her 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


281 


mother helpless and in bed; the doctor was 
fetched, and neighbours, coming in to help, 
told one another that Ellen Burt would 
scarcely see the snowdrops. 

So Joseph Woodnutt thought on New 
Year’s Eve when he looked in at dusk to 
inquire for her, and found Annie crying 
alone. 

When he came out of the cottage he 
strode straight across the road, in the roar- 
ing wind, under the leafless trees, to Nutcombe 
Place, and boldly demanded audience with 
her ladyship, to the indignation of the man 
who answered his ring at the principal en- 
trance. Eirelight blazed through the hall 
windows upon the grass, and upon armour, 
and boar spears, and full-length portraits 
within. Clear treble laughter rang out: he 
could see the young mother and children 
playing at ball under the hollies and mistle- 
toes in the glow. 

“ Who is this who must see her ladyship,” 
the tall young countess asked, stepping to- 
ward the door. “What, Woodnutt? What 


282 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


is her ladyship to do now, pray? A woman’s 
sake again? ” 

He stepped into the full blaze, and stood 
unabashed before the stately lady, now 
seated in a carved oaken chair, her children 
grouped about her. “ Yes, your la’ship,” he 
replied, for a ooman’s sake agen. And the 
ooman’s dying now. If you please,” he con- 
tinued, when her words had assured him of 
her sympathy, “ you bought Mrs. Burt’s 
clock. I want to buy en back again. That’s 
all.” 

“ Oh! ” The sympathy left her face; her 
voice became cold and sharp. “ I do not 
understand. I have no clocks to sell,” she 
replied. 

“ Begging your pardon,” he returned, 
“ your la’ship have got a clock ben in Mrs. 
Burt’s family over a hundred year. Mrs. 
Burt’s a-dying for want of that clock, and 
I must have en. I can give ee twenty pound 
down, and the other fifteen in a fortnight.” 

'' Lord Sharland has spoken well of you, 
Woodnutt. You presume upon his good 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


283 


opinion. Mrs. Burt certainly sold me a clock 
some time since for a high price. She was 
eager to sell it. It is a good clock. I have 
no intention of parting with it.” 

She rose in cold displeasure and turned 
her back upon him. “ Come, Gwenny,” she 
said, reaching a hand to her daughter and 
moving away. 

“ But she’ll die! ” cried Joseph, following 
her. “ Mrs. Burt’ll die, your la’ship! ” 

She turned back and paused, half per- 
plexed, wholly indignant, yet softening. 

Poor woman! I am sorry. What can I do 
for her? ” 

“ Sell me that there clock. If she could 
hear en ticktacken again same as all her life 
she med perk up again. She can’t bide with- 
out en. She’s entirely pined away for en.” 

“Absurd! Pining away for a thing of 
wood and metal! Why, then, did she sell 
her clock? I am sorry for the poor woman, 
but I really can not give people clocks be- 
cause somebody happens to be dying.” 

“ Do ee bide and hearken, ma’am, your 
19 


284 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


la’ship,” he implored, barring her way and 
turning the blaze of his earnest eyes upon 
her, so that she stepped back a few paces 
and leaned against the tall chimney-piece. 
“ Mrs. Burt’s Annie’s mother.” 

“ Ah! ” There was awakening interest in 
the word. “ Who is Annie, pray? And what 
has Annie to do with the stars? ” 

“ Annie Burt gave me her promise, your 
la’ship,” he replied with gravity. “ Then 
came family trouble; I swore on the Bible 
not to tell. Annie and her mother they 
raised money wanted between ’em. But my 
girl is too proud to come to me empty- 
handed, and she seen her mother pined for 
the clock, and she said she’d work her fin- 
gers to the bone but she’d buy en back. So 
I thinks to myself. I’ll work that clock back 
myself, and I’ll work Annie’s savings back. 
So I up and I go to you, a young ooman 
with a husband and children and a tender 
heart ” 

“ And said it was for a woman’s sake,” 
she interrupted with a little laugh, and eyes 


THE WIDOW’S CLOCK 


285 


suffused with sympathy. “ I was not aware 
that I was plotting against my poor clock 
that day — everybody seems to want my dar- 
ling clock. Well, well! The clock is yours, 
Woodnutt. And my best wishes are yours. 
I must see your Annie; she shall have a wed- 
ding present. I must give her the wedding 
gown. She is to be congratulated. She will 
have a manly, true-hearted husband.” 

By this time Joseph was one solid blush; 
his head went round, his mouth opened, and 
he found himself standing alone, listening be- 
wildered to the departing steps of mother 
and children. 

Bells pealed merrily upon the roaring 
wind from the church tower as he hastened 
back to the cottage, eager to tell Annie that 
the clock was redeemed and everybody was 
to be happy ever after. 

They were striving to convey these tid- 
ings to the dulled ear of Mrs. Burt an hour 
later when the sound of voices and footsteps 
below called attention to men wheeling a 
truck, upon which something lay on a mat- 


286 


THE WORLD’S MERCY 


tress covered with a cloth, up the garden 
path. 

“ Mother,” said Joseph joyously, “ wold 
clock’s come back. He’s comen up gairden. 
Take and drink this here soup. Money? 
Money’s all right. He’s buyed back.” 

Later still Mrs. Burt sat up in bed, only 
half believing the news, when the familiar 
warning whirr was heard in the quiet through 
the open door, and eight slow strokes rang 
out. 

Tears rushed to her eyes, her heart beat 
more strongly, her hearing quickened at the 
comfortable voice of her lifelong friend; every 
ticktack that followed seemed to bring her 
desolate spirit back from some far and friend- 
less waste to the peace and security of home, 
and made her forget all the pain and humilia- 
tion and heartbreak she had lately gone 
through. 

“ A happy New Year to ee! ” cried Joseph, 
vanishing downstairs at this juncture, to find 
’Liza, round-eyed with astonishment, sniff- 
ing and staring at the clock, which looked as 


THE WIDOW'S CLOCK 287 

if it had never withdrawn its jovial gaze from 
the hearth. 

The employer’s convenience,” Lord 
Sharland complained that evening, “ is well 
known to be a negligible quantity. Still, it’s 
hard to lose a good helper just as one has 
broken him in.” 

‘‘ For a woman’s sake? ” asked the bright- 
eyed young wife. “ Not hard at all. But 
don’t be afraid. My man finds the stars 
so ‘ mis’able interesting ’ that he won’t give 
them up because he is married and happy. 
I shall return Annie’s savings myself with 
some gracefully innocent fib. I think, dear- 
est, you must give him permanent employ- 
ment; also a cottage with a bit of ground 
to it.” 

No doubt I must if I value my domestic 
peace. But I draw the line at two acres and 
a cow.’^ 


THE END 


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